Lay Election of Popes Disproven by Church History

by T. Stanfill Benns | Sep 13, 2022

© Copyright 2009; revised 2022, T. Stanfill Benns (All emphasis within quotes added by the author)

Introduction

Appearances can be deceiving; that is why Our Lord tells us in the Gospel to “Judge not by appearances…” In general reviews of Church history, law and teaching, the statement is often found that in the early ages of the Church, clergy and people elected the Pope.  This statement leads one to believe that bishops, priests, and people voted for who would become pope and shared an active role in papal elections. But this is nothing more than an assumption, in reality. On closer investigation, the current laws of the Catholic Church governing papal election (Pope Pius XII’s “Vacantis Apostolica Sedis”) are far closer to what existed from the beginning than it appears. And while it is true that laymen can be elected pope, it is not true, as some have claimed, that this occurred with relative frequency in the first millennia A.D. Nor is it true, in any way, that the election of laymen is an indifferent matter; that the selection of laymen as papal candidates is in any way “business as usual” for the Church, or something that is looked upon as desirable. Church history reveals that only during one disastrous period were laymen elected or appointed pope, with the peripheral participation of laymen, with any frequency. As we shall see, the results of these elections were nothing short of scandalous and detrimental to religion. Following Our Lord’s advice then, we have taken a closer look not only at the history and practice of the Church where lay participation in papal elections is concerned, but at what Christ Himself has indicated as His will in this important matter.

What Did Jesus do?

Protestants have popularized the slogan “What would Jesus do?” on bracelets, in publications on coffee cups and so forth. Just as they took off with Fr. Lord’s “The family that prays together stays together,” the Protestants adopted “WWJD” as their own slogan, although it first appeared in print in a work by the Cistercian Abbot, Dom J. B. Chautard (“Soul of the Apostolate”) over 60 years ago. Chautard’s exact words to Catholics seeking to advance in the spiritual life were: “What would Jesus do? How would He act in my place? What would He advise? What does He ask of me at this moment? Such are the questions which arise of their own accord in the soul eager for interior life.”

To know what Jesus would do, we must first know what He did do and use this as our template, since no one can know the mind or motives of Our Lord in any other way. The Apostles and early Christians constantly looked to the life and works of Christ for inspiration, striving to imitate their Savior in every possible detail. Before the times of massive Church membership and government, before the Gospels were even set down in written form and distributed to the Churches, Apostolic tradition and preaching were all that existed to keep the faith alive; that and the blood of the martyrs, known to all as the seed of the faith. In this sacrifice of life itself, the Apostles and early Christians found perfection in imitating their Master. The Apostles preached, offered the Holy Sacrifice and administered the Sacraments in obedience to Our Lord. Likewise they were martyred in obedience to His teachings and instructed their followers to sacrifice all in obedience to His teachings as well; teachings which ultimately came from God the Father. It was and remains the most important lesson of all time.

Obedience

Obedience to God’s will in all things was the most predominant virtue in Our Lord. Here we have a God, obedient unto death to His heavenly Father, when at any moment a legion of angels could have delivered Him from any evil which threatened Him. Even as a Child, He could have freed Himself from the chill of the stable, the rigors of the flight to Egypt, the poverty of His life in Nazareth and the need to apprentice Himself to His stepfather as a lowly carpenter. He could have lived in a palace with servants, but He chose to stay where His Father had placed him, in obedience.

Even though it worried and frightened Mary and Joseph, He was bound to go to the Temple following His Bar Mitzvah, for in this way he was giving the first fruits of his newly declared spiritual manhood to His Father, and claiming His rightful place on the very site He would one day preach.  After St. Joseph’s death, He would remain with His Mother as her only support, continuing to work in the trade of His stepfather. And at her request and in obedience, He performed His first miracle by changing the water to wine at a wedding. Thus began His Public Life.

In the Garden of Gethsemane shortly before His death, Christ renewed His intent to obey His Father in all things. He willed to suffer a horrible agony and death to accomplish that obedience and our redemption. He told His disciples that on the other side of this horrible suffering and ignominy was new life, the Resurrection. And still they begged Him not to do His Father’s will; to escape His fate instead. Many beg us to escape our own suffering and forget we must obey. They urge us to attend illicit or invalid Masses and receive invalid or sacrilegious Sacraments; to place ourselves under some illicitly ordained and/or consecrated cleric, or accept some lay-appointed “pope” as our leader. Like Christ we have only one choice we can make if we are to accomplish our eternal goal.

What Christ taught and did

Many of us have gone to great lengths to discover what all this true obedience entails. But years of studying theological and other works seemed to provide only incomplete answers. That is because the answer lay in what Christ said and did.  This we learn from one of the great Fathers of he Church, St. Cyprian, who wrote: “Most of the bishops…set over the Lord’s churches throughout the world, hold to the method of evangelical truth and of the Lord’s tradition, and depart not by any human and novel institution, from that which Christ our master both taught and did…The Will of God is what Christ has done and taught,“(Faith of Catholics, Vol. 1, Msgr. Capel, editor). Likewise the Asiatic bishops, commenting on the approbation of the canonical books of Scripture, stated that: “As, on this principle of what Christ had done and taught, the writings of which we are speaking were admitted as sacred and divine…” (Ibid; all emph. mine).

How can what Christ taught and did lead us to the truth concerning who are valid and lawful successors of the Apostles? We need only trace Jesus’ actions in the Gospels to see the will of God in the Divine laws Christ enacted for the selection and identification of His Apostles and their true successors.

Holy Scripture tells us that:

1) Christ received his Divine commission from His Father in Heaven; He was appointed to teach, to govern and to sanctify the faithful.
2) He was the High Priest and King.
3) He did not assume this power on His own, because this would have destroyed the Divine chain of command; He was sent by His Father.
4) When He began His public ministry, Jesus first “called” his apostles to their vocation, then trained them for three years before ordaining and consecrating them all at the Last Supper.  
5) He first promised St. Peter the keys (the papacy) and made him the leader of the rest. But he did not make him Pope until after the Resurrection, because until then Christ Himself was the visible Head of the Church.
6) Also after the Resurrection He sent the Apostles to baptize and convert the whole world, investing them with the powers that He promised them and later sending them the Holy Ghost.
7) He promised to be with His Church, as He constituted it, “until the consummation of the world,” and he made this promise to all the Apostles, not just Peter. Therefore the Pope and His successors and the Apostles and their successors, the bishops, would exist until Christ comes again, and the earth is destroyed by fire.
8) Sending priests to preach in God’s name dates back to the Old Testament.
9) Christ commissioned His Apostles to: teach (teaching them all things); to govern (He gave all the Apostles jurisdiction after the Resurrection); and to sanctify (baptizing converts and doing all that He commanded).
10) Evil men would try to enter the sheepfold to steal, kill and destroy the flock.
11) Some of these would enter secretly.
12) And they would deny the Divinity of Christ.

Bishops and the ordination of priests

Men are called to the priesthood by the proper bishops of their diocese, and a true pope must grant these bishops the necessary jurisdiction to call these men. The pope granting the jurisdiction can only have been legitimately elected according to all the rules for election laid down by a previous true pope, and must be ordained and consecrated by certainly valid and licit bishops either before or immediately following his election. The Popes always have been accepted by a reasonable number of faithful, (on Pentecost a few thousand accepted Peter; during the Western Schism different papal claimants had anywhere from 3,000 to 5,000 followers, and this when the world population was much smaller.) Priests are trained for eight years or more and personally receive much spiritual education and direction from their instructors and confessors.  If these priests feel that these students are not advancing as they should, they can ask them to leave the seminary at any time. So they are called and trained as Christ called and trained the Apostles. If this training deviates in any one detail from what Christ taught and did, and what His Church says He taught and did, the calling and training of men for the ministry is not a blessing, but a curse. As St. Thomas Aquinas says, it is better to have fewer, but holier priests, than many who lack holiness and proper training.

Those rightly and licitly trained and retained are eventually ordained and some are consecrated bishops. But this ordination and consecration, to truly make these men priests and bishops, must come from one who belongs to a line of bishops proving their succession from the Apostles. And because Christ placed all the Apostles under St. Peter, and made them subject to him, these bishops must be in communion with the true pope. These are two indispensable conditions of what the Church calls Apostolic Succession. The Apostles and all the men who succeeded them create an unbroken line reaching directly back to Christ. There can be absolutely no break in the matter of orders or jurisdiction received from this line, or the Church is not the Church Christ constituted when He was on earth. He promised it would last as He constituted it until the end of time and His promises are always true. If we say there can be a break either where orders or jurisdiction are concerned, we say that He is a liar and was only a man; a great prophet perhaps, but not God. But only God could have guided the ship that is the Church all these years through so many hurricanes and gales and over so many dangerous reefs without shipwreck where Apostolic Succession is concerned.

Lay participation in the selection of priests and bishops

The Church teaches infallibly that the bishops are the successors of the Apostles. Bishops alone have the completion of the priesthood Christ granted the Apostles when he placed them in charge of the worldwide Church, with Peter as their head. In the early ages of the Church, the bishops allowed the laity to nominate the clergy they believed would be good priests and bishops, then the bishops would choose the most worthy from among these men for consecration. “St. Cyprian…never promoted anyone to Holy Orders without first taking the advice of his people and clergy,” (Rev. J. Tixeront, “Holy Orders and Ordination”). “The bishop was elected by the people, by the clergy of the Church over which he was to preside, and by the bishops of the province. We hasten to add that the strict right to elect belonged to the bishops of the province while the people and inferior clergy were merely consulted…”

Jules Le Breton and Jacques Zeiller comment that “The bishops were elected by the Churches but they were usually proposed by the clergy of the city, and it was for the Christian people, then, to confirm their choice,” (“The History of the Primitive Church”). Tixeront explains that this only lasted until the sixth century. “But beginning in the sixth century, the Church began by degrees to withdraw the power granted to the people and the inferior clergy to elect priests and deacons,” (Ibid). From that time on, the only vestige of their former right was the power they had to oppose the Ordination of candidates whom they deemed unworthy, the “scrutiny,” still retained today in the rite of Ordination.

This is confirmed by St. Alphonsus Liguori in his “Exposition and Defense of Faith.” He notes under the 23^rd session of the Council of Trent that the heretics then proposed that “all Christians are priests, and the call of the magistrate and consent of the people” were required for ordinations and consecrations. In response to this one Council father stated that “If the people had sometimes chosen priests or deacons, the election was made by the concession of the Holy See, but the right of confirming it and giving spiritual power belonged exclusively to the Churc” Another Council attendee added to this statement that the people assisted at the election only to give the necessary testimony [to the character of the candidates] but that they did not elect.” The laity today can still present themselves at ordinations and object to the candidates to be ordained.

In Rome, for the first 1,000 years or so, the clergy (bishops and priests) of Rome elected the pope but just as in any other diocese, they accepted the recommendations of the people regarding who should be eligible for election. Rev. Tixeront reports that deacons were typically elected to the papacy, because in the course of their active ministry they acquired a greater range of pastoral experience. This does not indicate that in these early centuries, laymen were elected pope. Nor is any credence given here to the idea that laity claimed an active vote in papal elections. Catholic historians regularly complain that it is very often next to impossible to state anything with certainty concerning the papacy, especially in the years 800-1,000. And very often, in researching popes before this time, the history books will say that nothing or very little is known concerning them. Hughes tells us only that by the eighth century, the election by, clergy, Roman nobility and the people was the “customary” practice. Some have intimated that the laity cast votes directly for the popes in these elections, but if this actually happened it was an event that occurred contrary to and outside the law.

Every exception to or derogation from the law must be proved beyond a reasonable doubt when following the Scholastic method mandated by the Church. Things deviating from the law are not to be drawn into precedent, (Rev. Amleto Cicognani, “Canon Law”). No certainty can be had in this matter, and we know that a certainly valid law did exist. In an “ancient canon,” a priest writing a biography on St. Bernard shows that the faithful had only the power to nominate, as was the case with selecting priests and bishops. This Canon states: “The Church ordains that the preference shall always be given to him who, at the request of the people, with the consent and concurrence of the clergy, has been first placed by the Cardinals in the chair of Blessed Peter” (“Life and Teaching of St. Bernard,” Rev. Ailbe Luddy, Cist., 1950).

Lay participation in papal elections

It was this old law to which Pope Nicholas II referred in 1059 when he officially limited the election of a pope to the cardinals. Referring to one of the earliest laws governing elections, Pope Nicholas II wrote: “However, it would certainly be correct and even lawful, if the order of selection carefully weighed in the opinion of Pope Leo the Great was resumed…If the perversity of depraved and wicked men shall so prevail that a pure, sincere and free election cannot be held in Rome, the cardinal bishops, with the clergy of the Church and the Catholic laity may have the right and power, even though few in numbers, of electing a pontiff for the Apostolic See wherever it may seem most suitable,” (April 12, 1059). When we investigate the history of Pope Leo the Great (Pope Leo I), we discover why Luddy referred to an ancient canon — Pope Leo the Great reigned from 440-461 A.D.  The historian Philip Hughes reports that during the time of Pope Gelasius I, “A carefully noted collection of all the canons of the councils and decrees of the different popes deciding cases” already had been collected, and among these easily could have been this ancient canon, (“A History of the Church,” Vol. II). It is most likely, then, that the ancient canon referred to by Luddy appeared in this early collection, which was later included in other official collections, even the Hadriana, used by Christian princes. So very early in the Church’s history Her laws clearly limit the laity to the nomination of papal candidates only. We know this because a later law limited even this level of participation in an election.

This original law of Pope Leo I was echoed again in 769, when Pope Stephen III decreed at the Lateran Synod that the Pope was to be chosen “only from the Cardinals of the Church or the deacons of Rome” (Rev. Ronald Cox, “A Study on the Juridical Status of Laymen in the Writing of the Medieval Canonists”). There had to be a good reason for Pope Stephen to make this decision. We can only assume that he believed that even lesser clergy were not qualified as papal candidates, far less laymen. At the same time, Pope Stephen placed further restrictions on the role played by the laity: “None but clerics should take part…in the election. The laity’s share (nomination) was reduced to the opportunity of cheering the newly-elected Pope and of signing the Acta of the election in sign of agreement,” (Hughes, Ibid.). So the myth of the laity’s right to actually cast a vote for a papal candidate cannot find support in ancient canon law, in papal law or in Church history. Divine law permits only the clergy to actually elect, because to them was entrusted the government of the Church by Christ Himself. The confusion surrounding the laity’s role in papal elections is much easier to understand once Church history is explained.

Rev. George Stebbing C.S.S.R., in his “The Story of the Church,” adds that Pope Nicholas II decreed that: “(1) The selection of a candidate should first be considered by the cardinal bishops, who then, with the other cardinals, should proceed to an election to be afterwards acclaimed by the rest of the clergy and the laity; (2) A Roman member of the clergy should be chosen if possible; (3) The election should be held in Rome, [but if not] the new Pope would exercise full authority even before being enthroned.” The decision to accord the Roman emperor only the right of acclamation in the election had “the effect of taking the choice out of the hands equally of the German emperors and the Roman clergy.” So how was the myth of lay involvement and the election of lay popes perpetuated and used to justify lay election today?

The Siege of Christendom

Lay involvement in elections was at its height during a period Hughes describes as “The Siege of Christendom.” At the beginning of this period, contravening the laws of Pope Leo I and Stephen III, a part in papal elections was restored to the laity and the papal election was limited to the Roman clergy and people, (822-827). The emperor also commanded that the pope swear an oath of allegiance to him, and that no pope would be consecrated until the emperor’s representative had decided that the election laws laid down by the emperor were followed to the letter. First the Roman nobility, in the 800s, then the German emperors, in the next century, either designated their choice for pope openly or reserved the right to approve the choice of the electors. Far from benefiting and providing stability to the Church, these concessions, agreed to only reluctantly by the Church, proved disastrous. Hughes calls these concessions ”unfavorable to the popes,” and describes the time period of the siege, 814-1046, as “the end of even the elementary decencies of life…These years are perhaps the darkest in all known European history. Nowhere are they darker than in Rome, where for sixty years one family dominated, making and unmaking popes at its pleasure…The details of this story are so grotesque, they lose all relation to reality.”

Rev. Stebbing adds: “[All] was covered with a cloud of ignorance, barbarism and corruption which almost seemed to envelope everything…And out of the darkness we have to make out what we are able of the persons or things that appear by the aid of the few and by the no means unimpeachable historians who lived in the period. The general barbarism and violence of the age told very disastrously on the position of the Holy See and the character of its occupant. Never was there a time when its subjection to the secular powers around it were so oppressive and so never has there been a time when so many unworthy pontiffs made their way to Peter’s chair. It was as if Divine Providence would furnish an object lesson of what the consequences would be if the Pope were anything but free, sovereign and independent.” Popes were rumored to have mistresses, they were implicated in murder and torture plots, and they were involved in all manner of intrigues. One pope was poisoned and beaten, another strangled to death in prison, and another very nearly died from a beating but survived. One, it is said, had his nose cut off. Another lay rotting in the streets before his burial and another was dug up from his grave to be deposed in full papal regalia. The features of the face of one antipope were obliterated, he was drug through the streets of Rome and he later was beheaded.

Hughes, Prof. McSorley and Stebbing explain the actual progression of papal election in these ages. First, local Roman rulers were forced to intervene in papal elections when the unruly people who participated in them revolted because their favorite candidates were not elected. On several occasions in the fifth and sixth centuries these rulers forced two rival contestants to resign, or decided from between two contestants who the true pope would be. Then the Carolingian emperors were involved in papal elections and until about 962, a Roman faction nominated every papal candidate. The freedom of election had been lost in the 800s, with the papacy treated as a prize to be won by these various political factions for their own benefit. When an agreement signed with the king of Italy in 824 gave the Roman people a share in the election again, the problems began. Yet even after this concession, we still find that the popes were not appointed, but elected by clergy and people or the Roman clergy until the latter part of the century. The 900s saw the reign of the Roman family the Theophylacts, who imposed one after another unworthy candidate on the throne of St. Peter. Eventually the German emperor Otto I stepped in, ended threats by barbarians and became the protector of Rome. Stebbing says he “nominated candidates to the papacy, summoned popes to trial and on occasion, deposed them.”

Age of the lay popes

It was Pope John XII who requested that Otto I end the interference of rival Roman factions in Church government and it was this same pope who crowned Otto I, making him master of Italy. He came to Italy shortly after the election of the first certainly known lay pope, Leo VIII, elected in 963. All historians now agree Leo was a layman. A council decreed his election invalid because Leo was a layman, but the emperor Otto later reinstated him. He reigned for only two years. It was over a several-year time period following Otto’s rule that two or three other lay popes were elected. Benedict VIII was the second layman “forcibly” elected and he is said to have been at least not incompetent or scandalous. Some believe he was a cleric on election. All agree that John XIX, brother of John XVIII was a layman when elected, and Hughes reports that he “revived the worst traditions of his tenth century predecessors.” But Rev. Stebbing disagrees.

“John XIX was clearly aware of his lack of preparation for this sacred office, and deplored it openly. He determined to guide his conduct by the advice of the best and wisest men he could find to counsel him. In this way…he was able to bear himself with dignity and escape the pitfalls laid for his want of ecclesiastical knowledge.” John XII, pope at the beginning of Otto’s reign, was one of the most scandalous popes to be elected during this approximately 225-year period. His degeneracy was equaled only by Benedict IX, who ruled off and on from 1032 to 1046. Benedict was one of two very young men made popes during these times, although several respected historians firmly state that he was somewhere between 18-30, not 12 at the time of his election, and some maintain he was a cleric. Others believe he was a layman. Benedict’s successor is said to have bought the papacy from Benedict to end the scandal and his evils resulting from his reign, (Stebbing). But soon this evil period would end.

The differing reports of historians concerning the number of lay popes tells us only that we cannot assume they were laymen, particularly since this was not the usual practice of the Church. No one can “prove” the status of these popes, one way or the other, if even the historians disagree. The practice of the Church shows that on all but a few confirmed occasions, clerics were elected to the papacy. The issue here is NOT whether laymen were or were not elected; no one is contesting this. The issue is whether they were ordained and consecrated following election. Even if one or two were not ordained or consecrated before their deaths, (and we know of two confirmed instances of this —Adrian V and Stephen II), Divine jurisdiction was still received and could be exercised in the external forum, according to Canons 109 and 218.

Painful transition

The papacy was at the mercy of its protectors, be they the Romans or the Germans. Unlike today, they were not their own city-state. The Popes have never had their own armies, other than palace guards. Whatever Rome suffered, they suffered. They could have fought the nominations of the emperors and the Theophylacts, but soon realized that disastrous consequences followed. Popes who did not go along with the powers that be were murdered, poisoned, imprisoned, tortured and held, basically, under house arrest. The emperors exacted a stiff fee for their protection. Even though the clergy at times had only a “nominal” part in the election (Hughes), this was preferable to the alternative. Having no part in the election, the confusion and harm to the faithful brought by contested elections, (which occurred anyway) and outright extended vacancies of the Holy See, known to be disastrous, was what they were facing.

The Church was relieved when Henry III, emperor of Germany, came on the scene, for Henry proved to be a better emperor than previous ones. Hughes records that in 1024 he “put an end to the scandals” in Rome, deposed three claimants to the papacy, and “nominated as pope a good German prelate…who took the name Clement II.” All in all, Henry nominated a total of three popes to the papacy. And the people and clergy confirmed his nominations without complaint. Henry, after all, was not a common man, but of royal blood. And the men he appointed were all bishops. One of them, Pope Leo IX was a saint. The man who succeeded him, Victor II, was the last pope nominated by an emperor. The Roman clergy elected Stephen IX and his successor and the next Pope, Nicholas II, ended the appointment of popes by the emperors. But this did not come about without a final opposition on the part of the imperialists, which made for a protracted transition. 

Even after Pope Nicholas II’s law was passed in 1059, ending the reign of the emperors over the papacy, the Church’s affair with imperialism was not over. On Nicholas II’s death, a pope was elected according to the new law, and then German and Lombard bishops selected another man favored by the nobility of Rome (antipope Honorius II). A schism ensued which lasted three years. It took a council to condemn Honorius before Pope Alexander II could begin his reign. (Over one-fourth of the entire list of antipopes in the Church’s history can be found during the time period from 814-1061.) As Hughes comments, the condemnation of lay involvement “suffered somewhat of an eclipse.” 

The next round against imperialism came with the condemnation of lay investiture. Emperors, foiled at interfering with papal elections, still did not hesitate to engage in simony and appoint bishops to sees without papal approval. It was a deeply ingrained abuse that had been part and parcel of the state-run situation in Rome for over two centuries, and unless it also was eradicated, Rome would never be entirely free.

Hughes comments that Gregory VII’s reign, which began in 1073 and ended in 1085 “were years of scarcely uninterrupted storm.” Lay investiture was challenged; a Roman council was convened which declared all those receiving sees from laymen excommunicated as well as the laymen who were offering them. King Henry IV of Germany failed to take Pope Gregory VII’s decision seriously, and prepared to appoint five bishops to sees. Gregory VII threatened him with censure, and Henry responded by trying to unseat the pope. For a time Gregory was even kidnapped, but was eventually returned to the Vatican. The excommunication was delivered to Henry, who submitted to the pope. Later however he returned to his old practices and the excommunication was renewed. The pope was taken prisoner again. He died with Italy divided, imperialism still threatening, and another three-year schism in progress. But the excommunication of Henry left a lasting impression, or should have. With time and troubles that demanded greater attention, imperialism subsided. It would come to life again during the Great Western Schism, the Reformation and in our own times.

Perpetuity of Pope Nicholas II’s law

The experiment of laymen even nominating other laymen as popes, or confirming a nomination made by the emperor, should have left a very bad taste in the mouths of Catholics, as Rev. Stebbing notes above. It resulted in the most shameful behavior and painfully embarrassing history for the Church. The Church only agreed to the conditions imposed by the emperors in fear of their lives and in hopes of purchasing what little modicum of order remained. Certainly no one should point to these regrettable years to prove that the feasibility of laity participating in any way in the election of the unworthy (whether the one “elected” is a cleric or layman) is anything worthy of repetition. Most certainly it is not something that can be cited as a precedent that would grant permission. (Even during the “Siege” period, historians note, clerics assisted in the election by at least confirming the emperor’s nomination.) The very last vestige of any participation in an election by an emperor came with Pope St. Pius X’s removal of the emperor’s right to veto a papal candidate prior to election. This is the reverse of nominating a candidate in that it amounts to deflecting the nomination of a candidate considered unworthy. This power was not the grant of an actual vote. It was a refusal right exercised by the last remaining Catholic emperors in St. Pius X’s own papal election. He later abrogated this veto in his 1904 papal election law, Vacante sede apostolica.

Both the historian Hughes, writing in 1935 and Rev. Anscar Parsons in his canon law commentary “Canonical Elections” (1939) state that Pope Nicholas II’s law was still in effect at the time that they wrote their works, since his “decree fixed the law for all future times,” (Hughes). Inasmuch as the law that he wrote limited papal electors to the cardinals who were to elect a cleric, this part of the election has never changed. Hughes notes that Nicholas’ law stated that, “Henceforth, the only electors were the cardinal bishops and the cardinal clergy of Rome. They were to elect, by preference, a cleric of the Roman Church. The emperor is not accorded any rights…” Pope St. Pius X’s election law and Pope Pius XII’s reordering of his law, Vacantis Apostolicae Sedis codified Pope Nicholas II’s law, effectively retaining its relevant parts and abrogating the rest. Pius XII admits the possibility that a layman could be elected (Six ans se sont, 1957), but only if deemed “fit” prior to his acceptance of the papacy. This is because at least two laymen already were officially listed as valid popes, a dogmatic fact which is indirectly infallible. Pius XII’s papal election law makes no specific mention of the election of a layman, however, although he orders that anyone elected who is not yet a priest must be ordained and consecrated. He addressed the matter of electing a layman only because those clamoring for novelty and change in the Church (Yves Congar and others) brought it up and the matter needed to be clarified. One would think that Traditional conclavists, who should be decrying innovations at every turn, would have been the last to resort to one.

In writing his papal election law, Pius merely added that a two-thirds plus one majority was needed for valid election and eliminated Pope St. Pius X’s requirement: that cardinal-deacons not yet ordained could not participate in the election unless they had first received permission from the Pope before his death. (This reflected the former law of Pope Sixtus V, who in 1586 decreed that there would be three levels of Cardinals: six cardinal bishops, 50 cardinal priests, age 30 or greater and 14 cardinal deacons. The cardinal deacons, he said, “could be 22, provided they became priests within one year of their appointment,” (Glenn D. Kittler, The Papal Princes). When Pope St. Pius X wrote his papal election law in 1904, Canon Law had not yet been codified. When it was codified, with this saint as the primary author of the Code and Pope Pius XII as one of his many assistants, this law was strengthened.  It was incorporated into the Code under Can. 232. This Canon states: “Cardinals… must be at least priests and be endowed with exceptional learning, training and experience,” (Revs. Woywod-Smith). Some have tried to say that the restriction of the right to election to Cardinal priests and bishops was an innovation strengthened by antipope John 23. But Pope Stephen III’s law above proves this is far from the truth.

We have explained before that the mention of the stipulation for emergencies found in Pope Nicholas II’s law cannot be interpreted as a privilege allowing the laity only to elect. It is included in a law intended to be in effect in perpetuity, but this does not give it the status of a privilege or extend it beyond its original purpose. It does lay down the method for proceeding in an emergency, and we do find ourselves in such an emergency. However, as Pope Pius XII decrees in his Vacantis Apostolicae Sedis, only the cardinals, (and as others have taught, in their absence the bishops) can decide what is to be done in the present situation. “If…a pure, sincere and free election cannot be held in Rome, the cardinal bishops, with the clergy of the Church and the Catholic laity may have the right and power, even though few in numbers, of electing a pontiff for the Apostolic See wherever it may seem most suitable,” (Nicholas II, April 12, 1059).

If we reference Pope St. Leo II’s law as Pope Nicholas II advises, all this provision says is that an election may be held outside of Rome with the usual provisions made for the laity; that of nomination at best and affirmation at the least. This is a restatement of an ancient law specifically designed to exclude direct lay participation in elections, (actual vote or appointment). The Church’s laws in this regard have not changed in nearly 1600 years.  There should no longer be any doubt about this. The Church fought valiantly to escape State control; She knew its many dangers. And to return to such a system would be to invite the return of calamity, as we have seen.

Apostolic succession never absent

Even during the tumultuous times of the Church’s “Siege” era, despite any irregularities in papal elections, one thing never changed, and this can be proven historically: whether laymen or clerics in minor orders, the one elected was always ordained and consecrated as soon as possible, then crowned. They were accepted as popes afterward by the entire Church. Inexperienced popes had full benefit of all the great minds at the Vatican for training, advice and briefing. In this manner they obtained full Apostolic succession since they were ordained and consecrated by successors of the apostles, to continue the Church’s Divine mission. No lay pope-elect has ever ruled the Church for any meaningful period of time without benefit of ordination/consecration. The instances of clerics elected pope remaining for a time without orders happened in the early ages of the Church when lay interference in elections was at its peak or Rome was undergoing attack from barbarians or foreign armies. These popes were elected validly by the cardinals and clergy, were accepted by the faithful and all were clerics on election. This is a far cry from lay people electing a questionably valid and illicit priest or a disqualified layman, or lay people and/or illicit clergy electing an illicitly ordained priest who is then consecrated by an illicitly consecrated bishop.

Research to date ascertains that five popes experienced delays in their consecrations, meaning that they were either deacons or priests at the time of their valid and licit elections, so were members of the hierarchy, (Can. 108). They also were subsequently accepted by the faithful. Stephen II, a deacon or priest on election in 752, simply died that same year before he could be consecrated; scarcely anything is known about him. The same is true of Adrian V, a cardinal-deacon elected in July 1286 who is confirmed as dying before receiving consecration. He reigned for 36 days (some say six weeks) and died in August. His only remarkable act was to suspend what some cardinals considered an overly strict law regarding Conclave rules enacted by his predecessor Gregory X, (1911 Catholic Encyclopedia). His successor, John XXI, later ratified the suspension of these rules. Eventually, however, the very rules Pope Gregory X proposed were adopted: the requirement that cardinals must remain inside the Conclave until the election of the pope regardless of any privations. These later became the permanent rules governing conclaves, and remain to this day.

As for the other three, Pope St. Leo II, a cardinal-priest was not consecrated for 17 months, being elected in January 681, sometime after the death of Pope Agatho on Jan. 10, 681. It is quite interesting to note that several historians do not date Leo II’s reign as Pope until 682, following his consecration, even though he was elected in 681. Pope St. Leo II was consecrated on Aug. 17, 682 and on this same day confirmed the Ecumenical Council of Constantinople, which had been in session at the time of Pope Agatho’s death, (Rev. Newman C. Eberhardt, C.M., “A Summary of Catholic History,” Vol. I. Eberhardt cites this confirmation as being made in “a letter to the emperor.”) Pope St. Leo II is listed as reigning from 682-683 in the Council of Constantinople documents cited by Henry Denzinger’s “Sources of Catholic Dogma,” (1957 edition).  

Pope St. Leo II died in 683, shortly after his consecration. His successor Benedict II, also had to wait 11 months before receiving consecration. Pope Gregory IV, elected as a cardinal-priest, waited six months after his election before being consecrated in March, 828. Once again, these delays were certainly not Church policy, but were imposed by agreements made by Rome with the emperors. They are nothing to be passed off lightly. And given the one precedent we have, certainly ordination and/or consecration have never been postponed for more than two years, but exceptions should never be drawn into precedent.

The Western Schism

While Martin V was only a subdeacon when elected, he was initially a cardinal from the Roman obedience of Gregory XII, later declared the valid pope, (although Martin left the Roman line as many others did). Martin V was held in good repute according to the Catholic historians consulted, and many in his family served as cardinals before him. He was an expert in Canon Law. Immediately following his election, over a three-day period he was made deacon, priest and bishop. One would think today that Martin V was at least a material schismatic prior to his election; but the laws governing schismatics at that time were not then what they later became. And Gallicanism was not condemned as a heresy until the Vatican Council convened, although it is said that as a cardinal Martin firmly opposed conciliarism. In this he agreed with Cardinal Zabarella, one of the “leading” cardinals during the Council of Constance. Historian Walter Ullmann says of Zabarella: “There seems to be a genuine dislike on the part of Zabarella for anything approaching so-called self-help by the citizens, in the sense that they could take the law into their own hands: if the faithful of either [papal] obedience believe in the justness of their cause, they will be saved,” (The Origins of the Great Western Schism).

This is precisely the position taken by Pope Paul IV in his 1559 Bull, Cum ex Apostolatus Officio; he did not hold the cardinals who left the obedience of one they held to be a doubtful pope as bound by any censures or guilty of schism, regardless of the time spent in that obedience or whether they acted as electors. He approved of calling upon the civil power to facilitate a new election, which was done at Constance. Even a great Saint, Vincent Ferrer, had endorsed a false pope, (Benedict XIII). And 140 years later, Pope Paul IV held none of them to any censures, and indicated that those only were to be considered heretics and schismatics who knowingly and willingly embraced error or departed from the obedience of one certainly known to be a true pope, having been “canonically elected.” How to tell, outside canonicity, that an election is valid is set down by St. Bernard: character of the one elected, dignity and integrity of the electors, (canonicity of the election), the validity and character of the one consecrating Innocent II a bishop, lack of prejudice owing to family connections and the absence of intimidations by civil authority, (ibid Ailbe Luddy). And none of them seem to have been seriously considered as determinants during the Great Western Schism.

Before Pope Martin V’s election, two of the papal claimants were deposed and Gregory XII resigned, but not before insisting that he formally convene the Council of Constance. Some historians remark that Gregory XII always believed he was the true pope. As a cardinal he had taken a vow to resolve the schism if elected, even if this meant tendering his resignation. But pressure from his family and the secular government caused him to rethink this course of action. He backed off from a mutual agreement with Pedro Luna (Benedict XIII) to resign simultaneously, sensing that Luna was not sincere in his offer to resign. Following Gregory’s failure to honor his vow, Odo Colonna, the future Martin V and several other cardinals left him in disgust. The false Council of Pisa was the unfortunate outcome of these failed negotiations, resulting only in the election of yet a third line of antipopes.  St. Vincent Ferrer also later abandoned Luna for his stubborn refusal to resolve the schism. As early as 1394, “the University [of Paris]… canvassed its doctors and graduate theologians for a thorough census of opinion,” (Thos. Neill, PhD., Neill Schmandt, PhD., History of the Catholic Church).  Unfortunately, their recommendations were met with inaction.

The preferred solution chosen by the University was voluntary abdication, rather than mediation or the convening of a general council, but “the popes rejected the idea.”  In 1398, the French hierarchy voted to withdraw obedience from the Avignon pontiff and for five years acknowledged none of the claimants as pope. Cardinal Zabarella condemned this move of “subtractio,” as outright disobedience. But had the popes done what they were asked to do, had they shown true compassion for the faithful and the Church, the French would never have been disobedient, the cardinals would not have left Pope Gregory XII, and the schism would have ended 20 years sooner. It is easier to understand how men elected by cardinals on two different sides, each with their own obediences and at least somewhat plausible claims, might think they are popes. It is impossible to understand how men without any orders or with only illicit orders, schismatics and most likely heretics, in spite of the Code of Canon Law and Pope Pius XII’s election law and contrary to Church history and practice, could think they had even a prayer of a chance at valid election and Apostolic Succession.

Who can depose doubtfully elected popes?

Some have said material schismatics can elect and be elected, because Cardinals from all obediences and even lay people were allowed to elect the pope at Constance. Six representatives from each nation joined 23 cardinals to elect Martin V. The old Catholic Encyclopedia states that these representatives were all prelates. What is a prelate? Can. 110 tells us that prelates are clerics. Attwater’s A Catholic Dictionary tells us that “the principal prelates are bishops,” followed by prefects apostolic and major superiors of religious orders. Would it really make sense that the Council would invite the minor clergy far less lay people to this election, excluding bishops, archbishops and abbots? This ridiculous attempt to use every possible ruse and all misinformation to convince people that the laity played a role in Church government they clearly never enjoyed is reprehensible. These people forget that the Church during the Western Schism had a true pope all along.

That pope, believing he was indeed the true pope convened Constance before he resigned. By convening Constance, he more than likely supplied for the election of a true pope because he knew the intended outcome of the council would be an election. When the Church (the pope primarily and the body of bishops only secondarily) supplies for defects, She can in effect remedy every flaw in the election. She obviously remedied these flaws at Constance, or the Church would have never recognized Gregory as pope and would not have retained Her Apostolic succession.

Constance did not depose “popes;” the true pope resigned. The Church’s recognition of Gregory XII as the true pope proves this; it could not have been otherwise. No one may depose a canonically elected, ordained and consecrated pope certainly accepted by the faithful except in the case of heresy pre-election. This is the teaching of Pope Paul IV in Cum ex Apostolatus Officio and also is the common teaching of theologians. Constance deposed only doubtful popes, a practice we see from above that has existed since the earliest times in Church history. The Roman political factions deposed papal claimants right and left, Otto I deposed papal claimants, Henry III also deposed papal claimants. In his work Canon Law, Rev. Amleto Cicognani explains that the Gallicanists erred in believing that what really applied to an extraordinary situation (the calling of a General Council to judge doubtful popes), also applied ordinarily, so that these bishops believed they could likewise judge, and were superior to even a certainly valid pope. The historian Franzen Dolan explains that there were really very few participants at the council who held to “radical ideas” such as those espoused by Marsilius of Padua. He states that the council never considered defining that it held itself superior to the pope. Instead, he points out, “the overwhelming majority” simply wanted to dispose of the troublesome antipopes and protect the Church “against similar cases of schism in the future.”

For a wonderful look at Apostolic succession expressed in principle, we need only look as far as the current law of Pope Pius XII on the election of a Roman Pontiff. Even before Canon Law was codified during the reign of Pope St. Pius X, Pope St. Pius X revised papal election law, compiling the essence of all the old laws on election into one manageable document, which addressed the needs at the time. Pope Pius XII would later issue his own law, but with very few changes to Pope St. Pius X’s law and only minor additions. So the present document governing elections, Vacantis Apostolicae Sedis, is nothing less than a compendium of teaching on papal election law issuing from the continual magisterium. In faithfully following these rules, the cardinal-priests and cardinal-bishops link in a very meaningful way to all that has gone before in the Church and connects it to the future of the Church. That is why, as one theologian so eloquently explains:

“The pope has [jurisdiction] immediately from God on his legitimate election. The legitimacy of his election depends on the observance of the rules established by previous popes regarding such election…In the absence of legitimate election, no jurisdiction whatsoever is granted, neither de jure, NOR DESPITE WHAT SOME HAVE TRIED TO MAINTAIN, DE FACTO… A doubtful pope may be really invested with the requisite power, but he has not practically in the Church the same right as a certain pope — he is not entitled to be acknowledged as Head of the Church, and may be legitimately compelled to desist from his claim…

“That the Church should remain thirty or forty years without a thoroughly ascertained Head and representative of Christ on earth, this could not be [Catholics reason]. Yet it has been, and we have no guarantee that it will not be again…We must not be too ready to pronounce on what God will permit…We, or our successors in future generations, may see stranger evils than have yet been experienced…contingencies regarding the Church, not excluded by the Divine promises, cannot be regarded as practically impossible, just because they would be terrible and distressing.” (“The Relations of the Church to Society — Theological Essays,” Rev. Edmund James O’Reilly, S.J. as quoted by John S. Daly; from the chapter “The Pastoral Office of the Church,” all emphasis by Rev. O’Reilly in the original. Rev. O’Reilly was the theologian of choice in Ireland for local Irish Councils and Synods, was a professor of theology at the Catholic University of Dublin and was at one time considered as a candidate for a professorship at the prestigious Roman College by his Jesuit superior.)

The Church thereby recognizes that whenever several papal claimants exist, the best plan is abdication and the only other recourse is declaration that such men were never popes. As Cardinal Zabarella wrote: “It is the people themselves who have to summon the neighboring bishops for special purposes if the properly instituted bishop neglects his duty of summoning his colleagues,” (Ibid. Ullmann; emph. mine). In a case such as ours, Zabarella says, “good clerics and loyal believers and followers of the Church” would need to resolve the situation, and God would have to intervene, since the Church, “cannot not be.” This also was the gist of Pope Nicholas II’s emergency clause. St. Robert Bellarmine concurred over 100 years later by suggesting the Imperfect Council, which must be convened by the bishops and could only act to denounce all usurpers and provide the Church with a pope.

Church practice, however, also would allow laymen to officially declare a man a false pope, and Pope Paul IV’s “Cum ex Apostolatus Officio” states this as a contingency in the case of removing a usurper. When the location of true bishops and clergy is unknown, it seems to be the only option. Especially if an election could be proven invalid according to existing Canon Law and Church teaching and was then easily and generally recognized as invalid, the claimant could be dismissed. In our current situation it may no longer be possible to summon true bishops, yet still the Church “cannot not be.” Divine intervention is the only answer left to us, whether this means miraculously revealing the location of the hierarchy or some other miracle. What Christ promised will always be.

Apostolic succession in Canon Law and Church teaching

Christ set down the essentials for apostolicity by His own ordination and consecration of the Apostles, lending Orders its divine origin, then His appointment of Peter to the papacy. Thus was the Divine form for this most essential mark of the Church established, a mark without which the other marks cannot exist, (1911 Catholic Encyclopedia). He gave the power of binding and loosing to the Apostles, and this they used to determine the method for designating Peter’s successors. St. Peter appointed Linus to succeed him, but all the rest, save the exceptions mentioned above, were elected by at least some members of the clergy of Rome.  Nowhere in Holy Scripture does Jesus accord any power in the administration of His Church to laymen. He set St. Peter over the sheep (bishops) and the lambs (the rest of the faithful) in appointing him pope.

This is why Pope Nicholas II, following Pope Leo I, groups them in precisely the same way: “ the cardinal bishops, with the clergy of the Church and the Catholic laity.” He gave the power of binding and loosing to Peter primarily and the Apostles as governed by Peter. The people do not share this power. The Church has condemned the teaching that the people themselves can directly elect or appoint their own ministers. (DZ 570, 960, 967, 1502; Denzinger’s “Sources of Catholic Dogma”). Their participation was always confined to nomination and/or acclamation. If emperors appointed the popes, or had a major share in their appointment, the Church supplied for such a situation, but only reluctantly. At the earliest opportunity she condemned the abuse to return to Her common and constant practice. And She has repeated these condemnations throughout Her history.

Doctrine develops; and the doctrine of the Church concerning the role the laity could rightfully play in ecclesiastical government developed slowly and painfully. But today there can be no doubt how the Church has decided in this matter. Hughes relates that it also was Pope Leo I who, although agreeing to ordain and consecrate a certain number of men elected to Episcopal sees who were not clerics, insisted that the law that they be clerics prior to election must be observed in the future. And this in the fifth century! The specious objection that this law was often not observed later on must be totally disregarded. It was the stated will of the legislator that it certainly be observed, and the legislator possessed the power to bind and loose in Christ’s name. This is upheld in DZ 967 and 424:Those not rightly ordained or sent are not lawful ministers. This means that while a priest who is a bishop-elect has the power to rule his diocese prior to consecration, (external jurisdiction only), this is not true of one who is not a cleric.

If one not a cleric is elected, Canon Law nullifies the election (or appointment). This ancient fact is reflected in the 1917 Code of Canon Law (Canons 147, 153, 154 and 453). First of all, governing all the rest, Can. 147 states that no office in the Church can be validly obtained without a canonical appointment, understood as “the conferring of an ecclesiastical office by the competent ecclesiastical authority in harmony with the sacred canons,” (the canon in this case being Can. 160, which refers readers to Pope Pius XII’s papal election law, “Vacantis Apostolica Sedis.” The canonists Bouscaren-Ellis report that this includes the papacy and Canon 109 and 219 confirm this.) Then Can. 153 declares that only a cleric may be elected to an office and must have the qualifications demanded by common law or particular law; if not properly qualified, conferral of the office is at least voidable. Canon 154 pronounces as null and void any office involving the care of souls that is granted to one not a priest. These two laws are repeated in Can. 453 in the case of pastors.

Some have tried to sidestep these laws by saying that a layman elected pope (by laymen, no less; and clerics deposed for heresy are reduced to lay status under Can. 188§4) receives jurisdiction directly from God and may exercise it (indefinitely) without the benefit of ordination and consecration. Church history and practice (tradition), Canon Law and infallible Church teaching tell us this cannot be true. Competent ecclesiastical authority only may elect, in accordance with the sacred canons, which always insisted on the participation of the clergy. And only when legitimately elected can a man accept the election and simultaneously receive the Divine jurisdiction that grants the actual office. The acquisition of Divine jurisdiction is entirely dependent on this legitimate election. Even the ancient laws demand that a certainly qualified cleric be elected, or in the rare case of a layman elected, that, at the very least, the one elected be confirmed (ordained and/or consecrated), by valid and licit clergy and acclaimed by the entire Church. The only reason the papacy survived the “Siege” era is because Apostolic Succession was always guaranteed. 

Certainly laymen can be and have been elected, in straightened circumstances or times of emergency, but this is not the constant practice of the Church. Even then, valid and licit clergy always supplied for the election of even an unworthy cleric or layman, at the request of a layman (emperor) and with the participation of cardinals as well as lesser clergy other than cardinals. But this is not possible today. The definition of Apostolicity/Apostolic Succession given in the old Catholic Encyclopedia leaves no doubt that unless a man possesses not merely valid and licit appointment or election but the actual valid and licit orders necessary to his particular office, he can never be counted as a successor of the Apostles.

1. a) The one who is claiming apostolicity must be able to prove that he possesses Orders and jurisdiction, which proceed in a direct and unbroken line from the Apostles to a bishop yet possessing them today.
2. b) This bishop must be lawful, (i.e., he must have received his episcopacy from Pope Pius XII). He cannot have been separated from the Church by heresy, apostasy or schism.
3. c) The doctrine he teaches must be unchanged from the time of the Apostles to the present, with no deviation, either, from those teachings of the Supreme Pontiffs proceeding from the ordinary or extraordinary magisterium.
4. d) The transmission of power must be both material and formal, meaning it must consist of actual succession from an unbroken line of orders conveyed by those with the authority (jurisdiction) to transmit it, for no one can give an authority he does not possess.
5. e) An authoritative mission is absolutely necessary for apostolicity to exist and a man-given mission is not authoritative. Unless apostolicity exists, none of the other marks can exist.
6. f) No new mission can arise because the mission given by Christ to the Apostles must pass from themselves to their legitimate successors in an unbroken line until the end of the world.
7. g) This notion of apostolicity derives from the teaching of Christ Himself. To deny this is heresy.
8. h) Any concept of apostolicity that excludes authoritative union with the apostolic mission robs the ministry of its Divine character. No one may disregard any teaching based on Divine law and retain membership in the Church.

This also is testified to by the unanimous teaching of theologians, (https://www.betrayedcatholics.com/lay-election-of-popes-disproven-by-church-history/).

Active lay involvement in elections forever condemned

Finally, The Council of Trent and Pope Pius VI put an end to all controversy concerning the role the laity is to play in the future where the election of bishops or any other ministers are concerned. Occurring only 125-150 years after Constance, it was the first opportunity the Church had to address these matters once the error of Gallicanism found expression in Protestantism. That Trent and Pope Pius VI intended to end these abuses is unquestionably evident in the infallible documents below:

From the Council of Trent: “This Holy Synod teaches that, in the ordination of bishops, priests and other orders…those who are called and instituted only by the people, or by the civil power…and proceed to exercise these offices, and…those who take these offices upon themselves, are not ministers of the Church, but are to be regarded as ‘thieves, robbers and those who have not entered by the door,’” (DZ 960; Canons 108-109; Can. 147). “If anyone says that … those who have neither been rightly ordained nor sent by ecclesiastical authority, but come from a different source, are the lawful ministers of the Word and of the Sacraments, let him be anathema.” (The Council of Trent, Sess. 23, July 15, 1563; DZ 967, 424; emph. mine).

Condemnation of the Jansenists: Pope Pius VI also condemned a Jansenist version of this same notion: “‘Power has been given by God to the Church that it might be communicated to the pastors who are its ministers for the salvation of souls.’ If thus understood that the power of ecclesiastical ministry is derived from the community of the faithful to the pastors — heretical,” (DZ 1502; Canons 108-109; emph. mine).

These infallible teachings prove that if anyone is instituted by “only by the people, or by the civil power…” [or] “…by the community of the faithful…” as a true priest or bishop without being  “rightly ordained nor sent” and “… proceed to exercise these offices…” as “lawful ministers of the Word and of the Sacraments,” they are excommunicated for heresy. In comparing the wording of these condemnations to what happened during the “Siege era” of the Church and the Western Schism, as well as today, it is clear that the Church had these abuses in mind and intended to proscribe them forever here by issuing these anathemas. It is clear from the wording that this was done to protect apostolic succession, and that no one not rightly ordained or sent can be intruded as a lawful minister — be this person a pastor, a bishop or a Pope, who after all is simply the bishop of Rome.

This also was emphasized later in the Constitution “Charitas,” issued by Pope Pius VI: “We therefore severely forbid the… illicitly consecrated men… to assume episcopal jurisdiction or any other authority for the guidance of souls since they have never received it.” So let us hear no more talk of emperors only appointing popes, laymen elected pope, laymen not ordained or consecrated before their deaths and the appointment of laymen to Episcopal offices, even by ecclesiastical authority, with no need of orders. Regardless of what happened in the past, all these things are now forbidden by the Council of Trent and other Church teachings as reflected in Canons 153, 154, 333 and 453.  Pope Gelasius taught that once the Church has ruled on a matter, it can NEVER be discussed or questioned again, (DZ 161).

As Pope Pius XII also later taught in “Ad Apostolorum Principis” : “Everyone sees that all ecclesiastical discipline is overthrown if it is in any way lawful for one to restore arrangements which are no longer valid because the supreme authority of the Church long ago decreed otherwise. In no sense do they excuse their way of acting by appealing to another custom, and they indisputably prove that they follow this line deliberately in order to escape from the discipline which now prevails and which they ought to be obeying” (condemning the lay investiture of Chinese bishops behind the Iron Curtain). How astute Pope Pius XII was in observing that those laymen intruding bishops and the bishops intruded would use the excuse of another custom to exempt themselves from obeying infallible decrees. It was this very appeal to abolished customs that contributed to the destruction wrought by the liturgical reformers at the false Vatican 2 council.

Conclusion

In summarizing what is stated above, the following observations can be made. First of all, the laity as a group never possessed an active vote in papal elections, as the assay of the various early Church laws and actual Church practice cited above proves. Secondly, any participation in the government of the Church by the Roman nobles or the emperors was either the result of tacit agreement by the Holy See or an official, signed agreement between the Vatican and its various “protectors,” at a time when the Vatican had no other choice in the matter.  In the third place clergy, including cardinals, always confirmed any nomination by ruling nobles and emperors, providing orders and/or consecration when necessary, and officiated at the coronation. The remaining nobles and laity also affirmed the election. Fourthly, it could be said that at the time, the failure of the clergy to insist on installing their own candidates rather than accepting a poor choice from the emperor was the result of force and fear. This excused them from any guilt in not obeying the Church’s own laws and practices, since papal election laws were then merely ecclesiastical. Confirmation, coronation and acclamation by the official body of the clergy and the faithful, then, supplied for any deficiencies and effectively legalized such elections.

Until its condemnation at Trent and by Pope Pius VI, election by nomination of the emperor was not identified as a heresy, although it was strictly forbidden for several hundred years. Likewise the Vatican Council forbade the holding of the Gallican articles for several hundred years before their eventual condemnation in 1870. So today, is it lawful and within the bounds of Catholic belief to advocate that we return to the idea that a General Council is above a valid, licit, canonically elected Pope? Most certainly not! And neither is it lawful or within the bounds of Catholic faith and belief to now return to a method of papal election that has since been condemned as heretical. Some will object that the condemnations above were only intended to apply to the institution of Protestant ministers. But when a man not a priest or bishop is “elected” to an office that requires the reception of the priesthood and episcopacy according to invalidating and incapacitating canon laws, and he is not a priest or bishop, but rules and performs as one, this is what the condemnation is forbidding. Or if an illicitly ordained man is elected, even by the people and (illicit) clergy, and he presumes to teach and preach as well as administer the Sacraments, this is clearly likewise condemned.

Canon Law demands that all orders and jurisdiction must be bestowed upon the clergy and proceed only from the clergy, (Can. 118, 147).  In authentically interpreting Can. 147, Pope Pius XII cited DZ 960, in forbidding Chinese secular authority to approve the consecration of bishops. The Divine mission promised to the Apostles by Christ belongs to the bishops, but it can be activated only by the successor of St. Peter. The power that is promised to the pope is “episcopal and ordinary,” (Can. 218). In other words, it requires episcopal consecration, either before or after election, if apostolic succession is to be continued. Episcopal or episcopacy means “an order superior to the priesthood” that includes the power to “govern their flocks…ordain priests and to confirm,” Attwater’s “A Catholic Dictionary; also defined by the Council of Trent). Ordinary means “a cleric with ordinary jurisdiction,” (Ibid.; emph. mine).  This is nothing more but the foundation of apostolic succession: orders and jurisdiction. Divine jurisdiction is transmitted only when ecclesiastical authority Can. 147) posits a legitimate election, (109, 218). Canons 218 and 219 are only a restatement of Divine and infallible teaching. The people or secular authority have no right to appoint even a cleric to an office, as Trent teaches, and the cleric thus appointed cannot exercise such an office even if they appoint him. Only the proper ecclesiastical authority (the cardinals, or the bishops and priests, in their absence), the governing body of the Church, was authorized by Our Lord to designate the one to whom He will transmit Divine jurisdiction, in the papacy.

What did Jesus do?

He created the hierarchy, the ecclesia docens, that they might teach, govern and sanctify the laity, the ecclesia discens; Divine law says that the laity has no governing power in the Church, (Can. 108, 109). He promised to bind and loose, guaranteeing His confirmation of de fide decrees in Heaven already enacted by His Church on earth. He promised that not only the papacy, but also the bishops and priests — the Church as He constituted it — would last “unto the consummation.” He demonstrated by his actions that unless these priests and bishops were first ordained (and consecrated), as He first ordained and consecrated His Apostles before sending them on the Divine mission, they could not be His successors. He gave the power concerning binding and loosing to His Church, and She has never failed to teach that cardinals must elect (preferably) a cleric as pope and that only in emergencies can the Universal Church — cardinals and other bishops and priests, with laymen allowed only to nominate candidates or to acclaim them — act outside this law.  Christ came to earth solely to do his Father’s will, and we must do as He did. Therefore, we must “depart not by any human and novel institution, from that which Christ our master both taught and did…The Will of God is what Christ has done and taught.”

It is as the Vatican Council solemnly proclaimed: “The doctrine of Faith, which God has revealed, has not been given over to be perfected by human intelligence, as though it were a philosophical theory,” (DZ 1800, emph. mine). It is not for us to question how Christ will revive His Church in these seemingly impossible circumstances, or even if, instead of reviving, He will arrive for the General Judgment. One of the two must occur. We are dealing with doctrines of faith, which cannot be questioned. A paraplegic cannot propel a bicycle forward, and a man missing even one of the two legs of orders and jurisdiction can never claim succession to the Apostles. It is what Jesus said, and what He did. It is what His Church unquestionably teaches that He said and did. If we once admit that any man can state otherwise and speak the truth, then we admit that man is a god in his own right and we deny Christ’s Divinity. “God alone is true and every man a liar.”

Jesus promised He would be with us unto the consummation. Lift up your heads, He tells us, for your redemption is at hand. If we keep our eyes on Heaven and remember what Jesus said and did while on earth, we cannot lose sight of our salvation.

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Bibiliography

(books consulted or quoted for this work):

Primary sources

• Holy Bible, Douay-Rheims version, John Murphy & Co., 1899
• Rev. Stanislaus Woywod, Rev. Callistus Smith, “A Practical Commentary on the Code of Canon Law,” 1957
• Rev. T. Lincoln Bouscaren, Rev. Adam Ellis, “Canon Law: A Text and Commentary”
• 1911 Catholic Encyclopedia, several volumes
• Henry Denzinger’s “Sources of Catholic Dogma,” 1957
• Donald Attwater’s “A Catholic Dictionary” 1941

Papal documents

• Pope Paul IV, “Cum ex Apostolatus Officio,” 1559
• Pope Pius VI, “Charitas”
• Pope Pius XII, Six ans se sont,” 1957
• Pope Pius XII, “Ad Apostolorum Principis”
• Pope Pius XII, “Vacantis Apostilicae Sedis”

Historical Sources

• Abbot Dom J. B. Chautard, “Soul of the Apostolate,” 1945
• Msgr. Capel, editor, “Faith of Catholics,” Vol. 1, 1885
• Rev. J. Tixeront, “Holy Orders and Ordination,” 1928
• Rev. Ailbe Luddy, O. Cist., “Life and Teaching of St. Bernard,” 1950
• Philip Hughes, “A History of the Church,” Vol. I-II, 1935
• Philip Hughes, “A Popular History of the Catholic Church,” 1951
• St. Alphonsus Liguori, “Exposition and Defense of Faith,” 1846
• Rev. Ronald Cox, “A Study on the Juridical Status of Laymen in the Writing of the Medieval Canonists,” 1959; Catholic University of America
• Rev. George Stebbing C.S.S.R., “The Story of the Church,”1915
• Rev. Anscar Parsons, canon law commentary “Canonical Elections,” Catholic University of America, 1939
• Glenn D. Kittler, “The Papal Princes,” 1961
• Thomas Neill, PhD., Neill Schmandt, PhD., “History of the Catholic Church,” 1957
• Karl Bihlmeyer, Herman Tuchle, “Church History — the Middle Ages,” Vol. II, 1963
• Joseph Lortz, Edwin Kaiser, “A History of the Church,” 1939
• Rev. Newman C. Eberhardt, C.M., “A Summary of Catholic History,” Vol. I, 1960
• Walter Ullmann, “The Origins of the Great Western Schism,” Burns, Oates and Washbourne, 1949
• August Franzen, John Dolan, “A History of the Church,” 1965
• Rev. Edmund James O’Reilly, S.J., “The Relations of the Church to Society — Theological Essays” 1892
• John Farrow, “Pageant of the Popes,” 1942
• Joseph McSorley, “Outlines of Church History,” 1944, (McSorley was a former professor of theology at the Catholic Univ. Of America)
• Notre Dame Sisters, “A Compendium of Church History,” 1911

Epikeia, Necessity negate the Church’s Divine constitution

by T. Stanfill Benns | Aug 17, 2022

(This article is divided into two parts, which treat of legal principles used by Traditionalists to justify their operations, The first part is treated at length, Epikeia and Its Application by Traditionalists; the second part Necessity Knows No Law, will be treated in a much briefer article following epikeia below).

Epikeia and Its Application by Traditionalists, Pt. I

© Copyright 2022, 2023 T. Stanfill Benns (Emphasis within quotes added by the author.)

1. The papal election constitutions Vacante Sede Apostolica and Vacantis Apostolicae Sedis both forbid the use of epikeia, defined as a correction to the law, as well as any other changes to canon law or papal law during an interregnum.
2. Ultimately, the invocation of epikeia is a quasi-legal maneuver — an attempt to supplant the Divine constitution of the Church.
3. Bishops do NOT receive their jurisdiction immediately from Christ, but only through the Roman Pontiff, and this must be held as certain (Mystici Corporis, Ad sinarum gentum, Humani generis, Ad Apostolorum Principis.).
4. In the absence of the Roman Pontiff, all papal jurisdiction ceases and cannot be appealed to or invoked during an interregnum, (Pope Clement I, Vacante Sede Apostolica, Vacantis Apostolicae Sedis).
5. This includes “supplied jurisdiction” under Canons 209 and 2261 §2, for the Roman Pontiff alone supplies it as approved authors attest.
6. Traditionalists long ago refused to elect a Roman Pontiff, relinquishing any claim whatsoever to even pretend to validly possess jurisdiction.
7. “It is from the institution of Christ Himself … by Divine right that the blessed Peter has perpetual successors in the primacy” (Vatican Council; DZ 1825). The Roman Pontiff has the “full and supreme power of jurisdiction, ORDINARY AND IMMEDIATE, over the churches altogether and individually, and over the PASTORS and faithful altogether and individually” (Vatican Council; DZ 1831).
8. Unless the Roman Pontiff is included in the Apostolic College of Bishops, and the other bishops are in communion with him, jurisdictional power cannot exist. The Divine constitution of the Church consists in God the Father sending His only-begotten Son to earth to appoint St. Peter as the head of the Apostolic College; and through him all power and authority flow. He alone is divinely appointed by God to possess this authority and power and only he can share it with the bishops. Sever the head bishop from the body of bishops, and the connection to the Divine is lost.

Introduction

Before proceeding with what follows below, it is necessary to remind readers of betrayed-catholics’ position regarding Traditionalist works on jurisdiction and epikeia. First of all, any pre-October 1958 work by an approved author, especially Canon Law dissertations which assay and summarize the various scholastic works, are to be taken as the standard and the final word on these matters. No one after that date has the right or the authorization to evaluate these works and arrive at conclusions contrary to them, not taking into consideration all the present-day circumstances. This is why no works of our own, per se, exist on these matters. All works here are based on the conclusions of others applied to the situation today. Because both Can. 209 and epikeia are invoked at length in the article to be analyzed below, the conclusions from two comprehensive works on these topics, written during the reign of Pope Pius XII, need to be set down here to avoid any confusion.

If Catholics sincerely believe that Pope Pius XII was the last true pope, then all that he taught and decided during his reign, everything written and approved by institutions known to be loyal to the Holy See prior to his death must be carefully adhered to and followed, not interpreted or piece-mealed to suit what others style as an “emergency.” No one receiving an education even in “conservative” institutions in the 1960s, 1970s were instructed by those approved by the Holy See and certainly those attending Traditional “seminaries” were mis-instructed, at best. Most of the detailed works on various canons and other topics are one-of-a-kind and cannot be duplicated. Because they provide these invaluable detailed histories of law and practice that today could not even be accomplished owing to a lack of access to materials, they must be considered the governing sources for any credible work.

The proper use of epikeia

From the conclusions page, found in The History, Nature, and Use of Epikeia in Moral Theology, by Father Lawrence Joseph Riley, Copyright 1948, The Catholic University of America Press, INC.  Imprimatur: + Richardus Jacobus Cushing.  D.D., 7 May, 1948:

• Epikeia may be defined as follows: A correction or emendation of a law which in its expression is deficient by reason of its universality, a correction made by a subject who deviates from the clear words of the law, basing his action upon the presumption, at least probable, that the legislator intended not to include in his law the case at hand.
• Epikeia may be used only with the greatest discretion; in the internal forum it may be applied to affirmative precepts and to negative precepts (ecclesiastical and civil), but very infrequently with regard to affirmative precepts, because the latter, binding semper but not pro semper, are more susceptible of interpretation than of epikeia.
• Epikeia is not to be identified with interpretation, dispensation, presumed permission, excusing cause, or popular acceptance of human law.
• Epikeia is a lawful institute of Moral Theology, based ultimately on the intention of the legislator to exclude from his law a particular case, and hence the presumed intention of the legislator is of the highest import in regard to epikeia.
• The intention of the legislator not to include a particular case in his law is not a merely interpretative intention, but exists in the mind of the legislator at least virtually though perhaps only implicitly… In a case where the evidence regarding this presumed intention of the legislator is so unsubstantial that the subject cannot even hesitatingly assent that he is free, epikeia may not be used…
• Epikeia may not be applied to precepts of the natural law, nor to precepts of the divine positive law of the New Testament.
• It seems probable that the use of epikeia was not permissible in reference to precepts of the divine positive law of the Old Testament.
• Human invalidating laws sometimes cease to bind; but epikeia may not be applied to human invalidating laws.

Revs. Cicoganni, Bouscaren-Ellis, Woywod-Smith, Rev. Francis Miaskiewicz, Rev. Raymond Kearney, Revs. McHugh and Callan — all these canonists and theologians warn of the great caution that must be used in applying epikeia, and the many dangers of abuse in attempting this application. So this easily amounts to a common opinion, if not a unanimous one.

Yet Traditionalists did not even follow the basic rules that govern the application of epikeia. As seen above, a specific law must be invoked. But what specific law did Traditionalists refer to when calling epikeia into play? There is a law that could have applied to this situation had it been consulted. Canon 20 reads: “ (1) If a general or a particular law contains no definite prescription concerning a case, (2) unless there is a question of applying a penalty, the rule for deciding such a case must be taken from (3) laws given in similar cases, (4) from the general principles of Canon Law based on equity, (5) from the methods and practices of the Roman Court [Curia] or from the (6) common and constant teaching of approved canonists” (numbers added for ease of reference). Because equity is included in (4), it seems Traditionalists, while never mentioning this law specifically, at least referred to it implicitly. Below we will follow the numbers in Can. 20.

(1) There was a law, however, that laid down definite prescriptions in this case. And in his work Canon Law, Abp. Amleto Cicognani states: “If there is a law covering the case, this rule [Can. 20] is not to be applied according to the meaning of Can. 18…” (p. 621). This then immediately disqualified any appeal to Can. 20. The law we are referring to happens to be an infallible law that has direct bearing on what can and cannot be done during an interregnum. It is Vacantis Apostolicae Sedis, (VAS), Pope Pius XII’s infallible papal election law. This constitution is a rewrite of the codification of all election laws enacted by Pope St. Pius X. Several things would have been clarified by consulting this one law. First of all, in the very first paragraph, the pope teaches that when a pope dies, nothing can be done by the College of Cardinals until a new pope is elected. If the Cardinals (in reality only bishops) attempt to usurp any act of papal jurisdiction, that attempt is null and void. This would include the appointment of bishops and the establishment of dioceses, as well as other acts.

Secondly, in paragraph two, the law reads: “The laws issued by Roman Pontiffs in no way can be corrected or changed by the assembly of Cardinals of the Roman Church while it is without a Pope, nor can anything be subtracted from them or added or dispensed in any way whatsoever with respect to said laws or any part of them.” As Rev. Lawrence Riley notes above in his conclusions:

“Epikeia may be defined as follows: A correction or emendation of a law which in its expression is deficient by reason of its universality, a correction made by a subject who deviates from the clear words of the law, basing his action upon the presumption, at least probable, that the legislator intended not to include in his law the case at hand” (dissertation submitted to the faculty of the School of Sacred Theology of the Catholic University of America, 1948). Obviously Pope Pius XII did not wish VAS to be tampered with in any way, clearly showing his mind in the matter for he states: “In truth, if anything adverse to this command should by chance happen to come about or be attempted, We declare it, by Our Supreme Authority, to be null and void.” This is an undeniable indication of an infallible document. So right off the bat, there is no possible way epikeia could be used to correct VAS, which forbids any changes whatsoever to this constitution. This also rules out the use of equity in (4) above, since in a conflict of law, the higher law prevails.

(2) There is also a question of using epikeia to correct or interpret penalties or even abolish them, in the case of Traditionalists.  Canon 20 rules that it cannot apply to penalties, and VAS teaches there will be no changes to canon laws during an interregnum.

(3) (5) (6) No attempt has ever been made to follow the remaining guidelines of this canon as required in order to justify the use of epikeia. The reasons why seem clear enough: Traditionalists were afraid that someone would point to the fact they could not invoke it at all, since it amounted to correcting the law and interpreting penalties.

But there is more. In Rev. Riley’s conclusions listed above, we see that the presumed intention of the legislator, to exclude from his law a particular case, is of the highest import in regard to epikeia. And there was a process that needed to be followed here in order to determine what exactly the mind of Pope Pius XII was even before validly ordained Traditionalists could proceed to exercise their orders. “Bp.” Robert McKenna and Fr. Noel Barbara, among others —in various letters and publications — admit that they “presume” Pope Pius XII would have wished Lefebvre and Thuc to consecrate bishops for the good of the Church and the faithful. No proof whatsoever is presented to support this bold statement. Guerard des Lauriers, supposedly a trained theologian, could waste time confabulating his material-formal nonsense, but could not be bothered to justify his own “consecration” by a mental incompetent? Pope Pius XII would have wanted this?!! Or by Lefebvre, a suspected Freemason himself whose own ordination and consecration was suspect?

No proof was forthcoming because it did not exist, and these men had to know that, if they had any knowledge at all of what was taught in Pius XII’s papal encyclicals. Not to mention the censures levied for violation of canon laws regarding failure to seek orders from competent authority and consecration without the papal mandate.  Notice Riley says above that at LEAST a probable opinion must exist regarding the legislator’s intent and that means five or more examples from approved authors/reliable documents of at least implicit permission to proceed.

But given the weight, expressed intent, invalidating clauses and infallible nature of VAS, there can be NO DOUBT that such an intent to allow such things to take place during an interregnum is lacking. The Pope is clear; during an interregnum, all stands just as it did upon the Pope’s death and if anyone dares to make innovations, the attempt is null, void and invalid.

Can Traditionalists claim supplied jurisdiction?

(Taken from Rev. Francis Miaskiewicz’s conclusions listed in the dissertation Supplied Jurisdiction According to Canon 209, Catholic University of America, 1940):

1. The Church in all probability does not supply in common error about a clear and certain law.
2. The Church does not supply in common error of law unless that error is built upon a basis of genuine probability.
3. Common error must be about the existence of a particular office or about the validity or the possession of jurisdiction by some particular person or persons; it must be particularized.
4. The Code has abolished the need of a colored title. But if common error about any fact is to exist, it must, of philosophical necessity, be occasioned by the presence of some kind of title.
5. There is no legal argument available to support the theory which attempts to identify error and ignorance as far as the application of Canon 209 is concerned.

Comments: There are several clear and certain laws, VAS above being only one of them. Another one of these laws is Can. 2314 n. 3 which forbid those excommunicated for communicatio in sacris from acting, even if validly ordained (which in the case of Traditionalists is highly doubtful). These laws preclude the possession of ALL jurisdiction, and there can be no doubt these laws have their affect and apply to them. Traditionalists freely admit they do not possess offices. They cannot and do not possess jurisdiction at all owing to their excommunication and the absence of the Roman Pontiff, who alone supplies jurisdiction to bishops who then may delegate it to priests.

A colored title according to Miaskiewicz is (a) true, when validly received from a fully competent superior; (b) colored, when conferred by a competent superior but is invalidated by some secret defect by the one granting it or receiving it. This defect, such as revocation, deposition, etc. must be unknown to the public. And so we come to (c) putative, which Miaskiewicz states is a title only pretended to be held, whether in good faith or in bad faith. But on pages 111-112 of his work, he restricts the actual meaning of the colored title to (a) and (b), intimating that a putative title in the matter of common error was not sufficient to qualify since all absence of any doubt must be proven, and (over time) sufficient investigation would reveal the fictitious nature of a putative title.

Finally there is common error itself, which has been fiercely debated among theologians writing in the years before Pope Pius XII’s death. Miaskiewicz cautions that it must be proven to exist, and is not as easily verified as some would like it to be. He further warns that it cannot be confused with common ignorance, since “Error signifies a false judgment whereas ignorance expresses merely an absence of knowledge” (p. 152) “…If any and all jurisdictional activity is to be considered as valid because of the verification of common ignorance, what jurisdictional act could ever be called invalid?” (p. 155). So given all the above, Traditionalists never possessed jurisdiction in virtue of their excommunication. for heresy and communicatio in sacris and therefore can possess no offices. Because of this they cannot claim any title, colored or otherwise, and cannot appeal to common ignorance or error, because information has been available for decades to dispel it.  We will consider next deficiencies of Traditionalist attempts to lay claim to at least some jurisdiction.

Jurisdiction articles available on the Internet   

Only two articles online, written by Traditionalists, appear to treat jurisdiction at any length and in any detail. Both of these articles, while not without some merit, entirely miss the point and fail to address the major issues facing Catholics today. The most glaring omissions in both articles are the following:

1. These authors fail to begin their works by first explaining the nature and source of jurisdiction and how it is conveyed.
2. They do not address the fact at all that those invoking jurisdiction for any reason must be rightly ordained/consecrated and appointed by canonical authority.
3. No mention is made of the fact that without a Roman Pontiff no jurisdiction whatsoever can be supplied, and that includes in danger of death. The Roman Pontiff alone can supply such jurisdiction. This is stressed by Revs. Miaskiewicz, Bancroft and Szal.
4. Very little mention is made of the decisions of the Roman Pontiffs.
5. Traditionalist authors are used as sources, when they are schismatics and therefore outside the Church.
6. These authors falsely appeal to the needs of the faithful as the primary reason for the invocation of epikeia and supplied jurisdiction.

What is most objectionable about these articles, even though they limit invocation of jurisdiction by Traditionalist pseudo-clergy, is that they are written from the point of view of Traditionalists and those who appeal to them for mass and sacraments. Both authors pointedly ignore the actual teachings of the Church in their totality and assume they are dealing with men capable of receiving the approval of the Church, in some capacity, to function. In doing so they completely ignore de fide teaching and papal decisions which leave no doubt whatsoever that what Traditionalists claim to possess cannot and does not exist.

In 1950, Pope Pius XII issued two papal decisions removing any doubt that those pretending to be the continuation of the Catholic Church today could ever constitute Christ’s true Church on earth. The first of these was issued June 29, 1950 as an authentic interpretation of Can. 147, based on the teachings of the Council of Trent:

The Council of Trent, Sess. 23, Ch. 4:

”In the ordination of bishops, priests and of other orders… the consent or call or authority of the people or of any secular power or magistrate is not so required for the validity of the ordination but rather [this Holy Synod] decrees that those who are called and instituted only by the people or by the civil power or magistrate and proceed to exercise these offices and that those who by their own temerity take these offices upon themselves are not ministers of the Church but are to be regarded as ‘thieves and robbers who have not entered by the door’ (Jn. 10:1)” (DZ 960).

“If anyone says that the bishops are not superior to priests… or that orders conferred by them without the consent or call of the people or of the secular power are invalid; or that those who have been neither rightly ordained nor sent by ecclesiastical and canonical authority but come from a different source a are lawful ministers of the Word and of the Sacraments, let him be anathema (DZ 967).

Canon 147 reads: “An ecclesiastical office is not VALIDLY obtained without canonical appointment. By canonical appointment is understood the conferring of an ecclesiastical office by the competent ecclesiastical authority in harmony with the sacred canons.” Traditionalists never received an office, for neither Marcel Lefebvre or Bp. Ngo dinh Thuc themselves possessed or could possess an office after resigning their offices from Pope Pius XII and participating in communicatio in sacris with the Novus Ordo church. Certainly heretics are not competent ecclesiastical authorities and the sacred canons requiring the papal mandate and assignment of dioceses for the erection of seminaries all were ignored. This decision of the Sacred Congregation, approved by Pope Pius XII, gives an authentic interpretation of this law making it equivalent to the law itself, citing the text of DZ 967 from the Council of Trent below and yet another version of DZ 960, varying slightly from the Denzinger translation:

“Those who undertake to exercise these offices merely at the behest of and upon appointment by the people or secular power and authority, and those who assume the same upon their own authority, are all to be regarded not as ministers of the Church but as thieves and robbers who have entered not by the door…His holiness Pope Pius XII…in order to preserve more inviolate these same sacred principles and at the same time forestall abuses in a matter of such great importance…deigned to provide as follows…” (Canon Law Digest, Vol. 3, T. Lincoln Bouscaren, S.J., 1953; AAS 42-601) And here censures are levied against those who violate this law, reserved in a special manner to the Holy See. So in promoting the heresy of jurisdiction outside the proper ecclesiastical channels, Traditionalists deny the teachings of St. Paul and our Lord in Holy Scripture, where they say men must be sent; this is the de fide teaching of the Council of Trent. Pope Pius XII’s teaching on Canon 147 is entered into the Acta Apostolica Sedis and is therefore binding on all Catholics. Traditionalists readily admit they possess no offices; ergo, they are not validly appointed by the Church.

But this was only the introduction to what would follow.

Episcopal power does NOT come to bishops directly from Christ

Another myth that Anthony Cekada and other Trad pseudo-clergy circulated for decades is that bishops receive their jurisdictional power directly from Christ in virtue of “consecration.” This despite the fact that since the 1800s, as Henry Cardinal Manning wrote in his The Pastoral Office, it has been the common opinion of theologians that the bishops receive their jurisdiction only through the Roman Pontiff. The matter was left open to discussion until the issuance of Mystici Corporis in 1943, stating that indeed the bishops do receive their jurisdiction only through the Roman Pontiff. Six weeks after issuing his decision on Can. 147, Pope Pius XII issued the encyclical Humani generis on Aug. 12, 1950. The import of this encyclical is explained below by Msgr. Joseph C. Fenton. Msgr. Fenton begins by quoting the following pertinent paragraphs from Humani generis:

“Nor must it be thought that what is expounded in Encyclical Letters does not of itself demand consent, since in writing such letters the Popes do not exercise the supreme power of their teaching authority. For these matters are taught with the ordinary teaching authority, of which it is true to say: ‘He who listens to you, listens to me’; and generally what is expounded and inculcated in Encyclical Letters already for other reasons appertains to Catholic doctrine. But if the Supreme Pontiffs in their official documents, purposely pass judgment on a matter up to that time under dispute, it is obvious that that matter, according to the mind and will of the same Pontiffs, cannot be any longer considered a question open to discussion among theologians.”

In his article “Humani Generis and the Holy Father’s Ordinary Magisterium” (American Ecclesiastical Review, 1951), Msgr. Joseph C. Fenton explains how these two paragraphs are to be understood by the faithful. He touches on some very important points below which I hope will help readers better understand some of the subject matter discussed recently on this blog.

“Each sentence of this paragraph [from Humani generis above] contains an important theological truth. The first expresses a sometimes-obscured fact about the Holy Father’s teaching activity. The second sentence brings out a truth which has not hitherto been set down very frequently in that section of theological writing dealing with the Holy Father’s teaching power. It constitutes a striking contribution to theological literature. The third stands as a necessary inference from the first and the second sentences. It has definite and intensely practical implications for present day theologians.

“The first statement of this paragraph condemns any minimizing of the authority of papal encyclicals which might be based on the subterfuge that the Holy Father does not use the fullness of his doctrinal power in such documents. The teaching of the encyclicals postulates an assensum per se, an acceptance by Catholics precisely because it is the teaching of the supreme doctrinal authority within the universal Church of Jesus Christ on earth. It demands such acceptance even when the Holy Father does not use supremam sui Magisterii potestatem. In other words, Catholics are bound to tender, not merely a courteous acknowledgment, but a genuine and sincere inward acceptance, to teachings which the Holy Father sets forth with a note or qualification LESS than de fide or even doctrina certa…

“Catholics are obliged in conscience to accept these condemnations, and to reject the proscribed propositions inwardly and sincerely. In the last analysis, this process involves the command to adopt an opinion, since the Church, in designating a proposition merely as something rash or ill-sounding (to mention only two of these doctrinal censures inferior to those of heresy and error), has not given a definition or completely definitive judgment on the matter in question. This irrevocable decision is to be found only in the definitions properly so called, THE DESIGNATION OF SOME PROPOSITION AS DE FIDE OR AS CERTAIN.

“It is impossible to see the full meaning of this teaching without having an accurate understanding of what constitutes the suprema magisterii potestas of the Roman Pontiff… It is perfectly certain that this same magisterium ordinarium et universale can also be the vehicle or the organ of a definition within the field of the Church’s secondary object of infallible teaching. The encyclicals of the Holy Father can be and actually are statements of this magisterium. Hence they may be documents in which a dogma is defined or a certain truth of Catholic doctrine (which, however, is not presented precisely as revealed) is brought to the people of God on earth…The Humani generis likewise adverts to the fact that, when a person hearkens to the authoritative teaching of the ecclesia docens, that person is actually hearkening to the voice of Our Lord Himself. Once again, it takes this means to remind us that the Church does not teach in this world other than as the instrument and the body of Jesus Christ. The man who quibbles about the Church’s doctrinal authority is finding fault, in the last analysis, with the means by which Our Lord brings His divine truth to the children of men.

“An example of this procedure is to be found in the treatment of the question about the immediate source of episcopal jurisdiction in the Holy Father’s encyclical Mystici corporis. Prior to the appearance of that document there had been many excellent theologians who had contended that the residential bishops of the Catholic Church receive their jurisdictional authority immediately from Our Lord. A greater number of theologians, (and writers de iure publico ecclesiastico) held, on the contrary, that these men received their powers from Our Lord through the Roman Pontiff, in such a way that they came immediately from the Holy Father. In the Mystici corporis, the Pope spoke of the residential bishops’ ordinary power of jurisdiction as something ‘immediate sibi ab eodem Pontifice Summa impertita.’ That phrase was rightly taken as an indication that the controversy had been settled, once and for all. Where before the teaching that the bishops received their power of jurisdiction immediately from the Roman Pontiff had been qualified as ‘communis,’ it now became known as ‘doctrina certa.’

“The fact that the Sovereign Pontiff had, as it were ‘gone out of his way;’ or ‘taken the trouble;’ to speak out on a question which had hitherto been regarded as controversial, was taken as an indication that he wished to put an end to the discussion… The fact that a question is thus treated by the Roman Pontiff is, according to the Humani generis, an indication that the Holy Father intends that this subject should no longer be considered as a question open to free debate among theologians… If the decision is irrevocable, but only in the sense that the Holy Father has placed this teaching within the category of doctrina certa (but not doctrina de fide) then the theologian is free to argue about the possibility of a de fide or dogmatic definition of this point, BUT HE IS DEFINITELY NOT FREE TO TEACH OR TO HOLD THAT THE DOCTRINE SET FORTH BY THE HOLY FATHER CAN BE REJECTED OR MODIFIED AT ALL. No teaching is set forth as certain unless it has been defined as true, unless there is no possibility, no fear or danger, that the opposite may turn out to be true.”

Summary

1. Unless an actual office is conveyed according to the sacred canons, which govern the proper appointment of bishops and those to whom they might delegate any jurisdiction, such men receive no authorization or power to do anything. They lack apostolicity, as the Council of Trent and the Catholic Encyclopedia explains and are to be considered as thieves and robbers.
2. This is true for two reasons:
3. a) they are not “rightly” nor “duly” ordained, having received their orders from heretics and schismatics and thus having incurred excommunication for such reception;
4. b) they were therefore incapacitated from ever receiving jurisdiction and did not in fact receive it, having never been appointed to an office by competent ecclesiastical authority.
5. Having never been rightly ordained, they could not possibly become bishops.
6. All jurisdiction received by bishops issues solely from the Roman Pontiff.
7. In the absence if the Roman Pontiff, such jurisdiction can neither be received nor supplied for; it simply cannot and does not exist.

Given Pope Pius XII’s decision on Can. 147, and regarding the jurisdiction of the bishops, there is absolutely no way that Traditionalists could validly claim any type of extraordinary or supplied jurisdiction. To do so they would need to deny teachings of the Church they are bound to accept to even pretend to remain Catholic. And any claim that epikeia could somehow provide them with such jurisdiction is the stuff of which fairy tales are made. And this is true even when penitents are in danger of death.

“The source of jurisdiction for the sacrament of Penance in danger of death has been controverted among the authors. Some have held that it is from the divine law. The reasons are (1) the granting of jurisdiction in this case is handed down in a constant tradition of the Church the beginning of which is not known; a tradition of this kind is a sign of the divine law; (2) if the Church had power to change this, that power and its use would not be for the good of the faithful but for their harm. Suarez considers it the true opinion that the jurisdiction comes from the Church. The words of the Council of Trent signify that this tradition has arisen from the Church and is at most an Apostolic tradition. All the documents granting this jurisdiction indicate that it is a grant of the Church.

“In giving this jurisdiction, the Church has always prescribed an order and a manner to be observed. THEREFORE ITS ACTUAL GRANT IS NOT IMMEDIATELY FROM CHRIST but it has been given to His vicars who are bound by the divine and even natural precept of charity to provide sufficiently for the necessity of the faithful” (Communication in Religious Worship With Non-Catholics, Rev. John R. Bancroft, C.S.S.R., J.C.B, S.T.L., Catholic University of America Canon Law dissertation, 1943). Miaskiewicz writes on pg. 194 of his work: “When the Church OR MORE SPECIFICALLY THE ROMAN PONTIFF is said to supply jurisdiction in any case whatsoever, be it in common error or in doubt, it is readily understood that the Pope acts in virtue of the plenitude of the jurisdictional power Christ entrusted to his person.” So according to VAS and the theologians above, in the absence of the Roman Pontiff — the source of all jurisdiction — it cannot be supplied, even to a vitandus in danger of death.

Traditionalists indignantly assert that because the popes would wish this natural precept of charity to yet exist, that this gives them the right to presume it still does exist. They accuse those who insist the Church cannot and does not supply any sort of jurisdiction in the absence of the Roman Pontiff, as clearly indicated above, of wishing evil to the faithful and for them to be deprived of all helps to salvation and the graces necessary for achieving it. But in all truth, Traditional pseudo-clergy are the ones who deprived the faithful of any possibility of electing a true pope while bishops appointed by Pope Pius XII yet existed. It was their obligation to rally the faithful to help find them and demand they elect a true pope.

But oh no; instead there was Guerard des Laurier’s material-formal lunacy and the idiotic antics of the “recognize and resist” crowd. This bunch actually believes their efforts will magically turn a heretical layman who never became pope in the first place (and could never become one) into a true Roman Pontiff! And then, when their pseudo-bishops failed to act, Traditionalists demonized and ridiculed all three attempts by the laity to try to elect a pope (and yes there were three, not just one). So who was really acting in the interests of the common good and for the “salvation of souls”?!

The common good and the imputability of acts

While Traditionalists spurn the idea their clergy could possibly be guilty of heresy, Canon Law indicates otherwise. Simply by resorting to such men as Lefebvre and Thuc for their Orders, they placed themselves outside the Church according to Can. 2314. Proofs of this have been available on this site for many years. Also mentioned previously is the following. In 1944, Rev. Alan McCoy O.F.M., J.C.L. wrote a dissertation, Force and Fear in Relation to Delictual Imputability and Penal Responsibility, (Catholic University of America). Under the general heading of “Delictual Acts Interdicted by Divine Authority,” regarding censures, he writes:

“When an act is intrinsically evil, or involves contempt of the faith or of ecclesiastical authority, or works to the detriment of souls… imputability is not taken away in such cases since in these instances the observance of the law still urges under the pain of sin, even though the most severe personal hardship or danger, or also the greatest private harm might come from such observance.” He then lists these delicts, under various headings in the 1917 Code as: “HERESY, APOSTASY AND SCHISM; COMMUNICATION IN SACRED RITES WITH HERETICS; USURPATION OF PRIESTLY FUNCTIONS AND SACRILEGE …the administration of Sacraments to those who are forbidden to receive them… THE CONSECRATION OF A BISHOP WITHOUT A PAPAL MANDATE… THE RECEPTION OF ORDERS FROM UNWORTHY PRELATES… the negligence of a pastor in the care of souls. And I hardly think anyone being honest about the subject could ever consider Lefebvre and Thuc anything but unworthy prelates. Another theologian writing on doubt in the law observes:

“A prohibitory law of its very nature admits the excuse of ignorance or moral incapacity and on this basis will frequently cease in its cogent force. Not so an invalidating law. Invalidation is not premised on an obligation but is derived from the will of the legislator who seeks to protect the common good of society and wishes to safeguard it more compellingly from fraud, injury and danger. The inviolable observance of invalidating laws is constantly urgent because their transgression presents a far graver danger to society itself” (Doubt in Canon Law, Rev. Roger Viau, S.T.L, J.C.L., 1954, pg. 69; Catholic University of America dissertation). And VAS is definitely an invalidating and prohibitory law, not to mention an infallible one. Above we see the reasons why such laws cannot be relaxed to accommodate the wishes of Traditionalists disingenuously claiming they act on behalf of the common good.  As seen above, the laws they have violated work to the destruction, not the salvation, of the faithful.

There are grave penalties for all the delicts mentioned by Rev. McCoy, which are detailed in Canon Law; and it is not a coincidence that no pope exists to deal with the many contemptible delinquencies committed by those described above. Nearly all would have been defrocked long ago, and the actors appearing on the Traditionalist stage today know this. We are dealing with a similar situation in this country today, where criminals are released from jail or prison to run free and commit crimes of every possible description, and the population at large is helpless to protect themselves. Many are con men who successfully swindle people out of huge sums of money or fraudulently acquire their property and other goods. But nothing can compare to those who come to us clothed as our spiritual benefactors but instead rob us of every spiritual good by presenting error as truth.

The true source of all jurisdiction

The Church Herself teaches that if those presenting as bishops were not in communion with a true Roman Pontiff, vested members of the Apostolic College, then they are usurpers and imposters and cannot possibly possess such succession.

Pietro Parente, others, Dictionary of Dogmatic Theology

“Only in dependence on the ministerial power of the Church, indefectibly faithful to the mandate of its Founder, do men of all times and places find the guarantee of the continuity of the means of salvation established by the Redeemer…The Church, moreover, is a well-organized Body in which every vital movement, linked to an external rite must depend in some way on the visible head. It is necessary therefore that every infusion of new, vital energies, caused by the Sacraments be in some way dependent on the visible head of the Church and on Her hierarchy…” (“Intention (of the minister of the Sacraments,). This reads: dependent in some way on the visible head of the Church AND Her hierarchy, not OR Her hierarchy. But you can really have a Church without the Roman Pontiff? And then there is this:

Msgr. G. Van Noort, S.T.D., Christ’s Church, Vol. 2, 119-122, 1959

“Apostolicity of government or mission or authority means the Church is always ruled by pastors who form one, same juridical person with the apostles. In other words, it is always ruled by pastors who are the apostles’ legitimate successors… For on no one but the APOSTOLIC COLLEGE under the headship of Peter did Christ confer the power of teaching, sanctifying and ruling the faithful until the end of the world. This triple power therefore necessarily belongs and can only belong to those who form one moral person with the apostles; their legitimate successors.

“How could a man belong to the College of the successors of the Apostles unless he be united to the head of the college and acknowledged by him as belonging to it? A man could hardly be a cabinet member if the president refused to accept him. Any man then who boasts Apostolic Succession but is not united to the Roman Pontiff may indeed actually possess the power of orders; he may even by purely physical succession occupy a chair formerly occupied by an apostle — at least he could do so — but he would not be a genuine successor of the apostles in their pastoral office; he would be a usurper.”

And like it or not, that is what Traditionalist pseudo-clergy are: USURPERS. Because we have no Apostolic College we have no Church! What is written above comes from REAL theologians writing when the Church WAS the Church, not these Traditionalist jokers today who dare pretend they know something about theology. They cite theologians often, but you will never read these citations in their writings. And then there is this:

Catholic Encyclopedia

“Above the prerogatives of his colleagues St. Peter had the unique distinction of being the principle of the Church’s unity and cohesion. As the Church has to endure to the end of time, so has the unifying and preserving office of St. Peter. Without such a principle, without a head, the body of the Bride of Christ would be no better than a disjointed congeries of members, unworthy of the Divine Bridegroom. In fact the connection of the Church with Christ and the Apostles would be loosened and weakened to the breaking point” (Apostolic College). And after almost 64 years, we are well beyond that breaking point today.

Rev. E. S. Berry, the Church of Christ, (p. 399).” “Christ evidently intended that His Church be governed by bishops — bishops by the power of Orders as well as by the power of jurisdiction… After the Ascension St. Peter and his successors [took] the place of Christ as visible head of the Apostolic body, with full authority to carry out His will: ‘Whatsoever thou shalt bind on earth, it shall be bound also in heaven.’ Consequently the Roman Pontiff, as successor of St. Peter, has sole authority to accept new members into the Apostolic body, i. e., he alone has authority to constitute bishops, since authority to teach and govern the faithful was conferred upon the Apostles as a body and can be obtained only by incorporation into that body.

“Bishops are shepherds for portions of the flock that was committed in its entirety to the pastoral care of St. Peter and his successors; but no one becomes a shepherd of any portion of a flock unless he be made such by the chief pastor of the whole flock. It is also evident that the chief purpose of the primacy — the preservation of unity — could not be realized if the bishops of the Church were not subject in all things to her supreme pastor.”

Pope Pius IX: “No one can be considered a bishop who is not linked in communion of faith and love with Peter, upon whom is built the Church of Christ; who does not adhere to the supreme Pastor to whom the sheep of Christ are committed to be pastured; and who is not bound to the confirmer of fraternity which is in the world.”

The arguments flying back and forth on this topic for decades have centered on one de fide teaching that has been key to all of this from the beginning. I will state it one more time and if people wish to ignore it then they can consider themselves outside the Church.

The only way these men could claim to preserve the Catholic Church in any meaningful way was to carefully follow all of Her teachings and laws in trying to construct something that remained true in every way possible to the original, but this they repeatedly failed to do. There was a void and they were determined to fill it, and that for their own benefit. This can be styled as nothing less than a contempt of faith, and such contempt has been defined above. To attract the followers they needed to stay in business, the salvation of souls had to be emphasized to the exclusion of the glory of God and good of the Church. Traditionalists do one of two things: either they offer as proof treatises after the style of Sanborn and Cekada replete with all the technical scholastic terminology (which Msgr. Fenton says is not necessary for a so-called “scientific” presentation) or like McKenna, they reduce their “proofs” to a few pages or a few sentences. Seldom do they rely on anything from the magisterium. But the teachings of the Church on what we are experiencing today were out there, as seen below. No one, however, one was interested in playing by the Church’s rules.                                                                                                              

Thomas William Allies on Jurisdiction

Had McKenna or any of the others truly wished to cite something on the subject of jurisdiction and succession that made perfect sense and came from an impeccable source, he could have resorted to the following. In 1865, Thomas William Allies M.A., a convert from Anglicanism, issued the third edition of a little work called The See of St. Peter, translated and circulated by the express order of Pope Pius IX. There he treats of the subject of jurisdiction, how it is transmitted and how it becomes inoperable. He begins by commenting on the Anglican Bishops, Barlow and Parker, whose consecrations were later determined invalid by Pope Leo XIII in Apostolica Curae:

“The confirmation of Parker was made by those who had no authority to make it; they were without any recognized jurisdiction. Let it be allowed that he (Barlow) had been duly consecrated; still he was disabled from executing his functions: He and his colleagues had no jurisdiction. On the supposition that they were true bishops, they had power to administer the Sacraments, but in no particular place, nor to any particular persons. They were bishops, but they had no subjects; all acts of jurisdiction performed by them under these circumstances would be null: acts of their Order, irregular. Supposing them to be true bishops, nay, to have been consecrated by the Supreme Pontiff himself and under no canonical disabilities, THEY COULD NOT CONFER ORDERS WHICH SHOULD BE VALID IN RESPECT OF EXECUTION; as they had no jurisdiction themselves, they could confirm none upon Parker and that defect must still inhere in Parker’s successors — time cannot cure it” (pgs. 61-62). Allies continues:

“Acts flowing from Order, although done wrongly and illicitly, are yet, when done, valid; but acts flowing from jurisdiction, if done upon those over whom the doer has no jurisdiction, are absolutely invalid and null… All this doctrine may be summed up thus; all spiritual power of the sacerdotal character is given together with a certain consecration, and therefore the keys are given with the order; but the use of the keys requires its proper matter, which is a people made subject by jurisdiction, and therefore one before he has jurisdiction has the keys, but has not the ACT of using them. A consequence of this is that while in all schismatics, heretics, excommunicated, suspended or degraded persons, the power of the keys remains as to its essence, yet the use of the keys is barred through defect of matter.

“For the use of the keys requiring superiority in the user over him on whom it is used, the proper matter on which the use of the keys is exercised is a spiritual subject; and since it is through the order of the Church that one is subject to another, therefore a former subject may be subtracted from his obedience by those who have the rule in the Church. Whence, as the Church deprives heretics, schismatics, and such like, by withdrawing their subjects, either simply or partially, so far as they are deprived, they cannot have the use of the keys” (pgs. 69-71). AND REMEMBER, ALL OF THE ABOVE IS PRESUMING VALID ORDINATION / CONSECRATION AT LEAST, AND NO CANONICAL DISABILITIES. There is grave doubt about the validity of Traditionalist orders and numerous canonical disabilities exist.

Reading the above, it is clear that there can be no jurisdiction without the proper assignment of subjects, and that barring such assignment, it cannot and does not exist.

On the pope’s supremacy of jurisdiction

Following the issuance of Allies’ work, the Vatican Council condemned with anathema those who taught that the pope’s “…full and supreme power of jurisdiction is not ORDINARY AND IMMEDIATE, or over the churches altogether and individually, and over the PASTORS and faithful altogether and individually” (DZ 1831). SO POPE PIUS XII’S DECISION ON EPISCOPAL ORDERS WAS ONLY A FURTHER CONFIRMATION OF THIS INFALLIBLE TEACHING.

So unless the pope assigns a bishop to a diocese or a mission territory containing spiritual subjects, he has no subjects (Vatican Council, DZ 1828). And if he has no subjects because he has no assignment or jurisdiction then he has none to delegate to priests. Collecting subjects who seek him out will not suffice, because supplied jurisdiction under Canons 209 and 2261 §2 assumes there is a true pope reigning to supply, and that in most cases such subjects already were lawfully assigned to minister to them. Nor can they appeal to God to supply jurisdiction when He has willed to supply it only through His Son’s Vicar. Commenting on the topic of episcopal jurisdiction, a very respected theologian explains this concept as follows:

“For authority [in the Church] comes directly from God through Christ, and from Christ to his Vicar, and from the Vicar of Christ it descends to the remaining prelates without the intervention of any other physical or moral person” (Louis Cardinal Billot, S.J., Tractatus De Ecclesia Christi (Rome: Aedes Universitatis Gregorianae, 1927), Vol. 1. p. 524). This is the same observation Parente makes above. And if no physical or moral person can intervene, neither can a pseudo-legal principle. The Catholic Encyclopedia teaches regarding Apostolicity:

“An authoritative mission to teach is absolutely necessary, a man-given mission is not authoritative. Hence any concept of Apostolicity that excludes authoritative union with the Apostolic mission robs the ministry of its Divine character…The intention of Christ is apparent from the Bible passages, which tell of the conferring of the mission upon the Apostles. ‘As the Father hath sent Me, I also send you’ (John 20:21). The mission of the Apostles, like the mission of Christ, is a Divine mission; they are the Apostles, or ambassadors, of the Eternal Father. ‘All power is given to Me in heaven and on earth…’ (Matthew 28:18). THIS DIVINE MISSION IS ALWAYS TO CONTINUE THE SAME, hence it must be transmitted with its Divine character until the end of time, i.e. there must be an unbroken LAWFUL succession which is called Apostolicity.” So what has validity to do with any of this?

Traditionalists of various shades and descriptions have continued all these years to falsely teach that you can claim Apostolic succession and grant jurisdiction to yourself, OVERRIDING GOD, by using some quasi-legal principle laced with cautions as a substitute for a Divine mission. Traditionalists writing on jurisdiction believe that the need of the faithful and an appeal to common error is sufficient to justify invoking Can. 209, but that appeal is not possible without a true pope. To be Divine, such a mission can be assigned to bishops only by the Pope, who receives his mission directly from Christ. Ergo, Traditionalist “logic” regarding Apostolic succession and jurisdiction forces one to assume that a “presumption” concocted by men not even certainly validly ordained and consecrated is the equivalent of a divinely authorized mission, making man equal to God in authority! So welcome to another church that passes for Catholic but really teaches secular humanism.

This usurpation of papal rights and power in this very same way was attempted before by the Gallicanist faction active during the Western Schism, where epikeia also was used to effect “…the restriction of the pope’s plentitude of power and his subjugation to a body, be it the Sacred College [of cardinals] or a general council, which shall exercise control over his actions. But this trend of opinion was not only illegal, it was above all against a fundamental article of Faith” (Walter Ullmann, The Origins of the Great Schism, 1948). And this book was written by a secular author! Later, the Gallicanist position was restated by the Anglicans to justify their rejection of the papacy. While still calling themselves Catholic, they even claimed to remain within the unity of the (“invisible”) Church. But Catholics cannot see or believe this is all about denying the absolute necessity of the papacy?

How is it possible that anyone, especially one presenting as someone knowledgeable in theology, can claim to possess Apostolic succession and jurisdiction via epikeia when to do so is the denial of a basic Catholic truth: that God Himself is the source of all authority in His Church and His Vicar is the dispenser of that authority on earth? This alone convicts every Traditionalist pseudo-cleric of heresy. This is the denial of DZ 1831, the canon of the Vatican Council on the pope’s supreme jurisdiction to which an anathema is attached. We are talking about a sacred spiritual power here, granted to act in Christ’s name as His duly commissioned representative, not some mere temporal delegation of power. It is this basic misunderstanding of what the Church teaches regarding the Divine transmission of authority that keeps Traditionalists in business and their followers enslaved to them. Those who believe that a quasi-legal principle such as epikeia can actually dethrone God and place men not authorized by Him in charge of His Church are definitely no longer members of the Catholic Church established by Christ.

And finally, from Rev. Joseph Riley quoted above:

“The Church as it was constituted by Christ (Pope, bishops, priests) was established forever as a hierarchico-monarchical society… to remain unchanged until the end of time… NOWHERE IN REVELATION IS THERE ANY EVIDENCE OF ANY INTENTIONS TO PERMIT EXCEPTIONS TO — OR CHANGES IN — THIS CONSTITUTION IN FUTURE HISTORY BY THE USE OF EPIKEIA OR ON ANY OTHER BASIS. MEN ARE FREE OF COURSE TO FOUND OTHER CHURCHES, DIFFERING IN CONSTITUTION AND NATURE… BUT SUCH CHURCHES ARE NOT CHRIST’S… To maintain that Christ had some intention for the future, contrary to that made manifest in the actual establishment of His Church is a refusal to believe in the efficacy of the divine promise that Christ would be with the Church unto the consummation of the world; it is a denial of the [four marks] and indefectibility of this divinely established institution” (p. 330-31).

AND REV. RILEY HAS SAID IT; WE DIDN’T. THIS CLASSIFIES ALL TRADITIONALISTS AS SCHISMATICS, JUST AS WE HAVE ALWAYS CLASSIFIED THEM.

Conclusion

It is a travesty that Traditionalists have been able to perpetrate the lie that they are the continuation of the true Church on earth without the juridical progression from the Divine constitution of the Church which alone can guarantee that claim. Limiting the Divine constitution of the Church to the service of the faithful is a perversion of the mission Christ entrusted to His Church. First, as Rev. E.S. Berry states in his The Church of Christ, “The Church, in common with all the works of God, must have for its final purpose the manifestation of God’s glory… Perpetuity follows also from the very purpose for which the Church was instituted, namely, the glory of God and the salvation of souls.” Thus in defining infallibility, the Vatican Council decreed: “Faithfully adhering to the Tradition received from the beginning of the Christian faith, for the glory of God our Saviour, the exaltation of the Catholic religion, and the salvation of the Christian people…” (DZ 1839).

By placing the faithful first and their need for the sacraments paramount to the exclusion of the needs of the Church and the glory of God is nothing more than parroting the very verbiage of the false Vatican 2 council and its pandering to the “people of God.”  We are here to serve the Church for the honor and glory of God, as its members; the Church is not here to cater to us. How many Traditionalists hypocritically condemn the Novus Ordo church when in reality they are only a mirror image of that church themselves!  The “salvation of souls” so vaunted by Traditionalists, is a privilege issuing solely from jurisdiction. The Catechism of the Council of Trent teaches: “The power of jurisdiction… has reference… to Christ’s Mystical Body, the Church; for to this latter belong the government… and direction of the faithful in the way of salvation.” Having never received jurisdiction, these men are incapable of ever obtaining the salvation of souls and in truth can work only to their damnation.

The powers of teaching and preaching can be obtained only by possessing jurisdiction. Msgr. Joseph C. Fenton writes: “The power of jurisdiction within the Church is possessed and exercised only by those to whom Our Lord has given the commission and the duty to take care of the subjects of this society. The men who have been given the Apostolic power are bound in conscience to employ it and to guide and direct the faithful in the way of eternal salvation…. Those who hear or heed the men to whom Our Lord has given the Apostolic power of jurisdiction by that very fact hear and heed Our Lord himself” (“Magisterium and Jurisdiction,” The American Ecclesiastical Review, March 1954). Notice Msgr. Fenton says it is Our Lord who commissions his bishops and priests. And His commission can issue only from the Roman Pontiff canonically elected. “Where Peter is, there is the Church” (St. Ambrose). And where he is not, the Church cannot and does not exist.

Necessity Knows no Law, Part II

Necessity and the necessary means to salvation

Traditionalists to this day claim that “necessity knows no law” as taught by St. Thomas Aquinas and detailed in Canon Law provides them with the authority to operate as clergy. They would be speaking more plainly, however, if they switched proverbs, for the proverb they actually should be citing is “Necessity is the mother of invention.” This proverb was first noted in one of Aesop’s Fables, 6th century BC, then later is uttered by Plato in his Republic: “Our need will be the real creator.” This was loosely translated in the 16^th century as Mater artium necessitas or “The mother of invention is necessity” (Wikipedia). Not surprisingly, invention indicates origination, innovation — something foreign to the Church, but not to Traditionalists. For it is not hard to prove that while they cited necessity knows no law, the citations they used to justify their actions were actually unrelated to what they were proposing, which was forbidden by Church law.

So to those unfamiliar with St. Thomas Aquinas and Canon Law, their references appeared sufficient and served as a cover for their real intentions: to invent a new hierarchy, a “Catholic” church without the pope, that would serve the needs of their followers who were clamoring for the Mass and sacraments. Traditionalists grandly flaunt their stated mission in this world as the salvation of souls, and indeed that is and was the Church’s primary, though not only, mission on earth. But it is not their mission. To possess an apostolic mission requires certainly valid orders and jurisdiction, which these men never possessed, and apostolicity of doctrine, when they deny the de fide teachings of Trent and the Vatican Council. Such men cannot and do not issue from the apostles nor do they teach what the Church has always taught. This has been proven repeatedly from impeccable sources in the articles found on this site.

But to be more specific, necessity is an actual rule governing all Canon Law. It states: “Necessity renders licit what is not licit in the law” (Rule 4). But this does not provide the wide scope that Traditionalists pretend it provides. It does not state that necessity makes valid what is invalid because this would be absurd. And as we have seen above, it is not the liciety of acts we are concerned about here; it is the presumed validity Traditionalists claim, and which they can never prove. Liciety cannot exist without first proving validity, so making something licit is scarcely an issue here.

What those following Traditionalists should truly be concerned within is this: What is really necessary for Catholics to save their souls?

1) Valid Baptism

2) Observance of the Commandments and laws of the Church

3) Obedience to the teachings of the Roman Pontiffs

4) Membership in Christ’s Mystical Body, the Church, which has not been lost through heresy, apostasy or schism.

5) Prayer and good works

6) True contrition for sins, a Perfect Act of Contrition each day and amendment of life in lieu of Penance

7) Spiritual Communion in the absence of the Eucharist

According to the Catholic Encyclopedia, Baptism and Penance are the two Sacraments necessary for all for salvation, as well as Orders for the Church (but this presupposes that Penance and Orders can be received without danger of grave sin and invalidity, which is not the case today). Pope Pius XII details the observance of numbers 3-5 as necessary for Church membership in Mystici Corporis Christi. And 6-7 have always been accepted as substitutes for the Sacraments of Penance and the Holy Eucharist. Catholics are forbidden to receive the Sacraments if even the slightest doubt exists that they may be invalid. Vacantis Apostolicae Sedis (VAS) declares all consecrations and establishment of seminaries, hence tonsure and ordination resulting therefrom, as acts of papal jurisdiction; these he affirms are invalid during an interregnum.

Pope Pius VI taught in Charitas, regarding the nullity of actions issuing from illicitly consecrated bishops:

“We therefore severely forbid the said Expilly and the other wickedly elected and illicitly consecrated men, under this punishment of suspension, to assume episcopal jurisdiction or any other authority for the guidance of souls since they have never received it. They must not grant dimissorial letters for ordinations. Nor must they appoint, depute, or confirm pastors, vicars, missionaries, helpers, functionaries, ministers, or others, whatever their title, for the care of souls and the administration of the Sacraments UNDER ANY PRETEXT OF NECESSITY WHATSOEVER. Nor may they otherwise act, decree, or decide, whether separately or united as a council, on matters which relate to ecclesiastical jurisdiction. For We declare and proclaim publicly that all their dimissorial letters and deputations or confirmations, past and future, as well as all their rash proceedings and their consequences, are utterly void and without force.”

Why didn’t Traditionalists cite this papal decree which so clearly refers to necessity? Precisely because this teaching is the basis (the fontes cited) for Can. 2370 excommunicating those daring to consecrate bishops without a papal mandate. Does the St. Thomas Aquinas’ reference Traditionalists regularly cite on necessity clarify anything? No; rather it further muddies the waters. For they provide the following.

St. Thomas Aquinas on necessity knows no law

St. Thomas Aquinas’ Summa on absolution in danger of death: “On the contrary, spiritual necessity is greater than bodily necessity. But it is lawful in a case of extreme necessity, for a man to make use of another’s property, even against the owner’s will, in order to supply a bodily need. Therefore in danger of death, a man may be absolved by another than his own priest, in order to supply his spiritual need… I answer that, If we consider the power of the keys, every priest has power over all men equally and over all sins: and it is due to the fact that by the ordination of the Church, he has a limited jurisdiction or none at all, that he cannot  absolve all men from all sins. But since ‘necessity knows no law’ [Cap. Consilium, De observ. jejun.; De reg. jur. (v, Decretal)] in cases of necessity the ordination of the Church does not hinder him from being able to absolve, since he has the keys sacramentally: and the penitent will receive as much benefit from the absolution of this other priest as if he had been absolved by his own.”

But do they quote this from St. Thomas Aquinas regarding necessity?

“If, however, the peril be so sudden as not to allow the delay involved in referring the matter to authority, the mere necessity brings with it a dispensation, since necessity knows no law.” (Summa I, Q-96, A-6.) St. Thomas then continues in in Article Six. “Whether he who is under a law may act beside the letter of the law; (1) There must be a sudden risk; i.e., something requiring immediate remedy; (2) The authority, who would normally decide the course of action must be unavailable; (3) Observation of the letter of the law would be hurtful to the common good.” (To be a law, it must tend toward the common good. All three of these conditions must exist before one may act outside the letter of the law.) “Nevertheless, it must be noted, that if the observance of the law according to the letter does not involve any sudden risk needing instant remedy, it is not useful for everyone to expound what is useful and what is not useful to the state; those alone can do this who are in authority, and who, on account of such like cases, have the power to dispense from the laws.” (Q-95, A-6.)

And in another place he states:

Summa I, Q. 97, Art. 2. “Therefore human law should never be changed unless in some way or other the common weal be compensated according to the extent of the harm done in this respect. Such compensation may arise either from some very great and very evident benefit conferred by the new enactment or from the extreme urgency of the case due to the fact that either the existing law is clearly unjust or its observance is extremely harmful. Wherefore the jurist says that in establishing new laws there should be evidence of the benefit to be derived before departing from a law which has long been considered just.”

First, regarding the Summa quote on danger of death, Traditionalists who pose as clerics have yet to prove that they are truly validly ordained and consecrated and able to offer the Sacraments to anyone. During an interregnum Pope Pius XII says they are not. He also says that any attempt to dispense from or violate the Canons or papal law is null and void, so necessity or no, nothing they have done is valid or licit. Clearly this citation from St. Thomas is a circular argument based on a point yet to be proven and it is no argument at all. By asking their followers to accept such an argument they are inviting them to disobey an infallible papal decree and endanger their souls. But they are the ones claiming to be all about the salvation of souls? This is yet another example of the devious mind games used to make them appear to be the answer to everyone’s prayers.

Secondly, concerning the conditions which must be observed, there was need of a remedy and the proper authority was unavailable. But the third condition was not fulfilled. Observing the law, not acting outside of it, is what would have protected the common good, as such laws are intended to do. So even if we were talking here about a human law, and not one emanating from Divine law, Catholics were obligated to obey it obey it in obedience to VAS and not risk frequenting Traditionalists.  Although there was no true pope, papal teaching was readily available at seminary and other libraries, as were periodicals written for the clergy, Canon Law dissertations and many other useful works. I know, because many of them are sitting in my library. And today they can be downloaded from the Internet.

Thirdly, how can one be compensated for violating the law, when that law issues from Divine Law? Or compensated for sending them to hell by involving them in schism? Did anyone ever explain the benefits and detriments to be derived from acting outside the law? there was never any interaction with the laity. All was decided for them at the top by the almighty “clergy.” And they even used Canon Law to absolve them from any wrongdoing.

Canons on neccessity

What about the Canons they cite to prove that the Code both approves of the use of necessity knows no law and absolves them from any consequences? Well here we have a problem. The Society of St. Pius X (SSPX) writers explaining this refer to both the 1917 Code of Canon Law and the Novus Ordo 1983 “revision” of the Code, which of course can be no revision at all. That alone disqualifies their arguments. Even in citing the 1917 Canons, they fail to quote the entire context and advise their readers of its full meaning and implications. The first canon they cite is Canon 2205 which states:

“The Code of 1917 spoke of necessity in Canon 2205, §2 and §3; the Code of 1983 [N.C.] deals with it in cc.1324, §4 and 1324, §1, 5. The law does not say what is meant by this item; it leaves to jurisprudence and doctors the task of giving it a precise meaning. But it is clear from the context that necessity is a state wherein goods necessary for life are put in danger in such a way that to come out of this state the violation of certain laws is inevitable…The Code recognizes necessity as a circumstance which exempts from all penalties in case of violation of the law (N.C. 1324, §4), provided that the action is not intrinsically bad or harmful to souls; in this latter case necessity would only mitigate the penalty. But no latae sententiae penalty can be incurred by anyone who has acted in this circumstance… This law of necessity can be resorted to only when one has exhausted all possibilities of re-establishing a normal situation, relying on positive law.” https://sspx.org/en/disposition-law-case-necessity-church

This article is brief. The references it quotes are written by a post-Vatican 2 “theologian.” The links direct readers to purchase one of his works. And the Canon he quotes gives the lie to what is said above:

“Physical violence which deprives a person of all freedom of action absolutely excuses from liability. Grave fear, even though only relatively such, necessity and even grave inconvenience excuse as a rule from all liability if there is a question of purely ecclesiastical laws. If however an act is intrinsically evil, involves contempt of the faith, or of ecclesiastical authority or works to the detriment of souls, excuses based on great fear, necessity and great inconvenience diminish but do not destroy liability.” The canonist Rev. Charles Augustine writes under this canon: “To the external forum may be referred three kinds of acts here specified, namely contempt of faith, contempt of ecclesiastical authority and spiritual damage. Contempt of faith spells apostasy or heresy, contempt of authority implies schism, if not also heresy and spiritual damage may be summed up under the heading of cooperation, scandal and hatred.”

Guilt remains for heresy, schism, harm to souls

In his 1944, dissertation, Force and Fear in Relation to Delictual Imputability and Penal Responsibility, (Catholic University of America), under the general heading of “Delictual Acts Interdicted by Divine Authority,” McCoy confirms what Augustine says above: “All authors [admit that] when the observance of a law, even of a merely human law, was necessary for protecting the public good, or when its violation led to contempt of faith, or of the law, or of ecclesiastical authority,” then there was no excuse from (grave guilt) or penal sanctions (p. 50). He further stated: “Intrinsically evil acts are distinguished from those acts which are extrinsically or merely positively evil acts. Their immoral character is so indelibly proper to them by their very nature that they cannot be made objectively good, not even by divine power. And therefore those causes which are admitted as exempting from merely positive laws… namely abrogation, dispensation, contrary custom, EPIKEIA, can never take away the objective immorality of such intrinsically evil acts (p. 91).

”When an act is intrinsically evil, or involves contempt of the faith or of ecclesiastical authority, or works to the detriment of souls… imputability is not taken away in such cases since in these instances the observance of the law still urges under the pain of sin, even though the most severe personal hardship or danger, or also the greatest private harm might come from such observance. And the reason for this is that some spiritual good, either of God or of the Church or of individual souls is involved…” He then list those acts tending to contempt of faith as: “the crimes of apostasy, heresy or schism; spontaneous assistance in the propagation of heresy and communication in sacred rites with heretics; celebration of mixed marriages before a non-Catholic minister; the usurpation of priestly functions...” 

On page 97, under the heading “Acts that Work to the Detriment of Souls,” McCoy continues: “These are all acts which draw people away from the faith or from the practice of Christian morals and thus expose them to the danger of eternal damnation…Those acts which, by their nature, work to the detriment of souls are listed particularly in Titles XVI and XVII of the fifth book of the Code…bearing the headings: ‘Offenses Committed in the Administration or Reception of Orders or the Other Sacraments’ and ‘Offenses Against the Obligations Proper to the Clerical and Religious State.’” Among the offenses McCoy lists that work to the detriment of souls are: “…the administration of Sacraments to those who are forbidden to receive them…the consecration of a bishop without a papal mandate…the reception of Orders from unworthy prelates…the negligence of a pastor in the care of souls, conspiracy against the Roman Pontiff…interference with the liberty and rights of the Church, (Can. 2334)…”

And McCoy adds: “Almost any delict can tend to contempt of the faith or of ecclesiastical authority if it is committed in certain aggravating circumstances.” So what has been presented above proves that there has been a blatant misrepresentation of the teachings of the Code and the actual import of this law. More importantly in fact, MOST importantly, is the charge of conspiracy against the Roman Pontiff, which seems to be evident in Traditionalist usurpation of magisterial authority.

Orders presumed; validity cannot be proven

Another article authored by a Sedevacantist “cleric” writes: “When ordinary or delegated jurisdiction is lacking, the Church is able to supply the jurisdiction. The supplying of jurisdiction by the Church is a provision of the law whereby jurisdiction is supplied automatically at the very moment in which it is exercised (ad modum actus), lest the spiritual welfare of a person suffer harm because of a lack of jurisdiction by the priest through no fault of the beneficiary. This is especially true of the jurisdiction we call sacramental. St. Thomas Aquinas explains that the power of jurisdiction is not granted to a man for his own benefit, but for the good of the people and for the glory of God. Also, when showing that all validly ordained priests can absolve a penitent at the point of death, the Angelic Doctor brings up the principle that “necessity knows no law”, which applies to our present circumstances in a particular way… To deprive the faithful of the sacraments in order to fulfill the requirements of a positive ecclesiastical law would be contrary to the divine law.”

Here again, this author presumes the valid ordination of those to whom he refers when this has been proven false by Vacantis Apostolicae Sedis. And by the Church supplying, as we have pointed out time and time again, is meant the pope. As theologians all agree and Pope Pius XII teaches in Vacantis Apostolicae Sedis, all papal jurisdiction ceases on the death of the pope and cannot be supplied by anyone else. As to positive ecclesiastical law, infallibility and papal jurisdiction are Divine law. That is what the Vatican Council defined; that God has revealed this. Canon 196 states: The Catholic Church possesses, by Divine institution, the power of jurisdiction or government. This power is two-fold: that of the external forum and that of the internal forum…” But of course they have perpetually refused to acknowledge the following truths:

“The Pope can exercise his authority independently of the intervention of the bishops. Peter can and must feed all the lambs (the bishops) as well as the sheep (the faithful). Hence the Pope is rightly termed by the Fathers and the councils the episcopus Episcoporum, episcopus universalis ecclesiae and Pastor pastorum. THIS IS A DOGMA OF FAITH… Accordingly the Pope’s primacy of jurisdiction over the Church of Christ is not circumscribed by general councils, by the College of Cardinals, BY ANY GROUP OF BISHOPS nor for a stronger reason by the faithful or by civil rulers or by any human power whatsoever. The end of the ecclesiastical society is higher than that of every human society and authority” (Aabp. Amleto Cicognani, Canon Law, 1935, p. 71).

The denial by all Traditionalists of the Vatican Council decrees and the pope as a necessary member of the Apostolic College, ruling the Church, is the real necessity they are fleeing from. Next we will briefly address yet another legal principle used by these pseudo-clerics to attempt an end run around VAS. Needless to say, they fail miserably.

Conclusion

All the above is only further proof that those following Traditionalists were misinformed, misdirected and that information necessary for them to make an informed decision regarding their spiritual welfare was withheld from them. There was no sudden risk to the faithful; the “clerics” who kept harping about being the experts had every opportunity to instruct those who were asking for the Sacraments that they could keep the faith at home until things were studied carefully and in a professional manner. Traditionalist position papers circulating on the Internet today are woefully lacking in the research and documentation department and fall far short of any resemblance to the scholastic method practiced for centuries by theologians. The Roman Pontiffs are seldom mentioned in their works.

The flimsy legal maxims of necessity and epikeia can never override the infinite power that emanates from God the Father, to His Son Jesus Christ, to St. Peter, assisted by the Holy Ghost, and finally to the bishops entrusted to St. Peter’s care. We belong to a Divinely instituted Church, not a church founded by men. We are kingly race, a royal priesthood, and a holy nation.

The Four Marks Cannot Exist Without the Three Attributes

by T. Stanfill Benns | Jul 21, 2022

© Copyright 2013, revised 2022; T. Stanfill Benns (All emphasis within quotes is the author’s unless indicated otherwise.)

Without a true pope, Traditionalists do not possess the Four Marks

Gallicanism, liberalism, modernism and other fatal “isms” have made so many inroads among the faithful and so few recognize the extent of the damage these heresies have inflicted that it is almost impossible for anyone to drive home the true devastation wrought by these false teachings. Yet if we begin at the beginning, as the Church instructed us to do, we cannot help but find our way back to the truth if we truly love God and honor His Church. Who was it, I ask, who Jesus called in the beginning and placed at the head of the others? We know the answer, and contained in that answer lies the solution to many of the problems we face today. A pope does not sit today on Peter’s throne and yet the words of the Continual Magisterium are eternal; they serve us as well today as they did when they first came from the mouths of Christ’s Vicars. Christ, His Apostles and His Vicars in their official teaching capacity alone were entrusted with the divine guarantee of truth. To search for it elsewhere is insanity.

Christ founded His Church on Peter the Rock, yet He Himself is its Head, and we are the members of His Mystical Body. This we learned in our grade school catechism. The Vatican Council decreed that the Church, as Christ constituted it, will last unto the consummation, interpreting Christ’s words in Scripture, yet anything involving men can fail. As long as a true pope exists, joined to Christ the Head and endowed with the charism of infallibility THAT Church cannot fail, but we know that a true pope does not exist today. Christ’s promise to St. Peter that His faith will never fail is Divine Revelation and is incapable of being broken. But if one of its conditions is lacking (a legitimately elected pope ruling the Church) the promise to uphold an entity when its head is not ruling concurrently with Christ does not apply, just as the terms of a contract do not apply if one of the stipulated conditions fail. The Church continues because Christ — who always was and always will be — is its Head. He will always remain with His Church, so that promise also is kept and indefectibility is maintained. But at present He rules it silently and alone, without the assistance of the juridic Church.

That Christ will remain with His Church “until the consummation” is a separate promise made by our Lord that many confuse with His guarantee of Peter’s faith (infallibility). Yes, the Church as Christ constituted it, will last until the consummation, for He will head it and succor it until the end and the teachings of His Vicars and ministers will never fail to be available to the faithful. But did He not also tell us “The Kingdom of God is within you,” and did He not promise us that “Where two or three are gathered in My name, there will I be in the midst of them”? How could He stand by these teachings which are not dependent on clergy for fulfillment if by “as He constituted [the Church]” meant, in the Vatican Council documents, that we would always have access to the hierarchy? Is Christ not greater than the Church He constituted? Does Divine Revelation not tell us that in the end times the sacrifice will cease and that the beast would be given power “to make war with the saints and overcome them”? (Apoc. 13:7). Did not Pope Paul IV define the abomination of desolation as an antipope usurping the papacy, if we but read and study the circumstances that surrounded the writing of his bull? (One of his cardinals was openly campaigning for the papacy and he suspected him of heresy. This is precisely the situation that existed with Roncalli, Montini).

In past vacancies of the Holy See, this promise of the Holy Ghost’s assistance to never err remained while its reality was temporarily suspended, for no one possesses infallibility in the absence of the Roman Pontiff. This Pope St. Pius X and Pope Pius XII both taught in their separate constitutions on papal elections. Should papal jurisdiction be assumed by the cardinals or others and usurped, these popes infallibly declare any of their attempted acts null and void. This is the best available proof that hierarchy in the absence of the pope does not possess infallibility or papal jurisdiction. The Church is at Her most vulnerable when the See is vacant and is most open to attack. For this reason, Pope Pius XII very clearly annulled any attempt to violate Church rights and papal laws or act in the stead of the pope in his absence by exercising jurisdiction accorded him by Christ. Popes throughout history have ordered cardinals to convene in conclave as quickly as possible and fill the See because they know the dangers any delay could pose. As we have experienced ourselves, even when there is no delay, the wolves can enter the sheep pen and decimate the flock.

While the cardinals pray for Divine assistance in electing a true pope, they only designate who he shall be; his jurisdiction and infallibility are received directly from Christ, provided the cardinals uphold all the rules of election and the one elected himself is a (validly) baptized Catholic in possession of the use of reason. Christ’s promise was bestowed only on St. Peter and his legitimate successors (Canons 109 and 219; DZ 570d). The visible Church could err and elect a false pope — antipopes have happened in the past so we know that this is possible. These men are human, and unless they abide by certain papal directives during the election, it is void. While no interregnum has ever lasted as long as the one we are experiencing now, this cannot and does not mean that Christ’s promise has failed. He is currently heading His Mystical Body and regardless of the length of the vacancy, the See will always be capable of occupancy, even if our Lord chooses to personally appoint another pope Himself or leave it vacant until the Second Coming. A promise is a promise; He can keep it any way He chooses. For the 1900 plus years Christ’s Vicars reigned on earth prior to Pope Pius XII’s death they never erred in deciding matters of faith or morals. And as noted above, Christ as Head of the Mystical Body will remain with His Church into the consummation.

In the past, certain Catholics remaining in the Novus Ordo church were given the grace to recognize that the men claiming to be its popes were not teaching Catholic doctrine. They wondered how it was possible that this could be when they believed and were told by their clergy that the Church can never be the Church minus the Roman Pontiff. They felt at a loss to offer any positive proofs of their imposture, because nothing concrete seemed to exist. But over time the evil deeds of these men became public and their heresies well known. Papal laws were discovered that deposed them from power automatically. Today there is every reason to judge them as antipopes who never succeeded St. Peter.

But the real challenge is to prove that without a true pope nothing that once was the visible Church can exist; no vestige of it can remain because the promise of infallibility and papal jurisdiction has been indefinitely suspended. Yet the Church Christ founded still continues in its members, and those members still may access all the graces necessary to salvation and save their souls. How do we know that the visible juridic Church cannot function in any way without its head? We know this from Christ Himself, as interpreted by the Vatican Council; the popes themselves and the catechisms approved by the Church. We know it from the writings of the theologians and canonists. And these are the only valid sources we may consult to determine what must be believed.

The Vatican Council affirmed that papal infallibility is “a tradition received from the beginning of faith,” (Henry Cardinal Manning in his The Vatican Decrees and Their Bearing on Civil Allegiance, 1875). Scripture and Tradition are the two sources of Divine Revelation. Therefore infallibility is a truth of Divine Faith. “It was a doctrine of Divine Faith before the Council and the denial of it was confined to a small school of writers,” Manning adds. Unless there is certitude concerning the legitimacy of a papal election and the qualifications of the one elected, infallibility and apostolic succession cannot be presumed as received because it is a matter concerning eternal salvation. No one may use a probable opinion in such matters, according to the teachings of Bd. Pope Innocent XI, (DZ 1151, 1153).

The Church, Rev. Thomas Kinkead teaches, as represented by the Four Marks, cannot exist without the presence of the three attributes: authority, infallibility and indefectibility. Of course authority is jurisdiction; Kinkead defines the authority of the Church as: “…the right and power which the Pope and the Bishops as the successors of the Apostles [have] to teach and govern the faithful.” Infallibility is the inability of the pope to err when teaching on matters of faith and morals. Indefectibility, Kinkead teaches is, “the Church will last forever and be infallible forever; it will always remain as Our Lord founded it and never change the doctrines He taught.” And naturally he teaches (Q. 520) that the Church “…cannot have the four marks without the three attributes…without [the attributes] the marks could not exist.” Pope Pius IX decreed that the absence of even ONE mark — especially that of apostolicity so glaringly absent today — would negate all the others (DZ 1686).

What power can Traditionalists claim to possess today? Where is their power of order when the jurisdiction necessary for their doubtfully valid bishops to confer tonsure is lacking, and they do not even bother to deny it is lacking? While it may be possible during the occupancy of the See for the faithful to request the Sacraments from schismatics and heretics, even vitandus (in danger of death), depending on circumstances, this does not include the request for and reception of the sacrament of Orders. The Church selects Her candidates for Orders according to very specific and discriminating criteria; the candidates do not request ordination for themselves. For, “Only clerics can obtain the power of either orders or jurisdiction,” (Can. 118) and there is no jurisdiction held by Traditionalists to create clerics.

The Council of Trent teaches, (Sess. 22, Ch. 16): “Furthermore, let no cleric who is a stranger, without commendatory letters from his ordinary, be admitted by any bishops to celebrate the divine mysteries and to administer the sacraments.” Even if it were allowed for men to seek ordination themselves, the bishops ordaining admit they have no jurisdiction except that supplied by Can. 2261 §1, nos. 2-3, which is NOT supplied for the reception of orders, since it is not a Sacrament necessary to salvation. So since the pope supplies this jurisdiction and he doesn’t exist, where is their power?! Despite any appeal to Can. 2261 §1 nos. 2 or 3 by Traditionalists claiming jurisdiction, the infallible decree of Pope Pius XII (Vacantis Apostolic Sedis) nullifies any “supplying” of jurisdiction during an interregnum.

These “bishops” never received an office or diocese by grant of a true pope per his papal mandate so cannot and do not exercise such power; they lack authority. We have no pope so there is no infallibility, except that of the Continual Magisterium from the past — for papal decrees are eternal. And if we wish to claim indefectibility, the Church must remain as our Lord founded it (with a canonically elected pope) and profess and teach all Her dogmas, so one could never embrace Traditionalists. While they falsely teach that they possess all the four marks and even at one time circulated a news publication by this name, they cannot gainsay Christ’s testimony throughout Holy Scripture, or the Continual Magisterium, however much they ignore these teachings and dispense themselves.

So if we examine the minimum requirements for the juridic Church to exist at all, it is not difficult to see that, from the outset, the requirements for Her existence among Traditionalists are woefully lacking. And the further we examine the finer details, the more apparent this becomes. In the next sections on the attributes that follow this piece, we will descend deeper and deeper into the proofs necessary to understand beyond any doubt that without a canonically elected pope, without certainly valid hierarchy, the juridical Church cannot possibly exist. Yet the Church Christ established on earth remains intact.